ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge 2016 (ASC16) concluded in Wuhan on April 22. The co-host Huazhong University of Science and Technology won the championship and the e Prize with its extraordinary performance. Shanghai Jiaotong University was runner-up, and Zhejiang University won the Highest Computing Award. In addition, Nanyang Technological University, Beihang University, National University of Defense Technology and Sun Yat-sen University won the Application Innovation Awards. The most popular team prize was won by Hong Kong Baptist University and Nanyang Technological University.

ASC16 is the largest supercomputing contest in the world, participated by 175 university teams from six continents. After preliminary matches, 16 teams were selected to attend the finals held in Wuhan, China this week. The finals required participating teams to design their own supercomputing system within the constraint of 3000 watt and apply it to various frontier scientific and engineering projects, such as optimized benchmark test, ocean simulation, material science, life genes and in-depth learning.

In the e Price challenge, team Huazhong University of Technology designed a outstanding indepth neural network optimization solution addressing the in-depth learning DNN intelligent voice recognition, which achieved highly precise training model for around 600,000 voice data involving English, Chinese Mandarin and Sichuan Dialect, improving the computing performance by 108 times the highest.

Team Zhejiang University used highly optimized isomer accelerating supercomputing system to run the internationally accepted HPL benchmark test, and made the new world record with a floating point computing speed at 12.03 trillion times per second.

Jack Dongarra, Chair of ASC Expert Committee, one of the sponsor of Top500 list in the world, and professor of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and University of Tennessee said in the interview: “So many students gathered together in the contest. The energy inspired is truly meaningful to the development of supercomputers. The contest will influence the students’ future and guide their career development. This type of contest is fantastic.”

Hu Leijun, Vice President of Inspur Group, the sponsoring organization of the contest, believed that the computing capability had become a new production element along with the rapid development in information technology, bringing more changes to the society, production and life. With this trend, supercomputers were no longer a cost, but an investment. Its development would become one of the important element symbolizing the overall strength of a country.

Chen Jianguo, Vice Chancellor of the host Huazhong University of Science and Technology commented that ASC16 closely followed the latest development of information technology and linked the technological innovation with practical needs in social life. Its commitment to the education of young students in supercomputers would help to cultivate a group of high-quality supercomputing talents with international visions.

ASC16 was co-organized by ASC Community, Inspur and Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Initiated by China, ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge aims at promoting exchanges and cultivation of young supercomputing talents among countries and regions, improving the application and R&D in supercomputing and promoting technological and industrial innovation through supercomputing.