SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 31 — The HPC Advisory Council (HPCAC), a leading organization for high-performance computing research, outreach and education, and the ISC High Performance Conference, formerly known as the International Supercomputing Conference, today announced the return of the widely successful HPCAC-ISC Student Cluster Competition in next year’s ISC program of events. In a real-time competition, 11 teams of undergraduate students from around the world will build a small cluster of their own design on the ISC 2016 exhibit floor and race to demonstrate the greatest performance across a series of benchmarks and applications. It all concludes with a ceremony on the main conference keynote stage to award and recognize all student participants in front of thousands of HPC luminaries.

“The HPC community has embraced the HPCAC-ISC Student Cluster Competition competitions as both a fun and compelling event to watch, and an important vehicle to engage students and get them interested in scientific and technical careers,” said Gilad Shainer, chairman of the HPC Advisory Council. “This is an excellent educational opportunity for students around the world to showcase their knowledge and skillsets and to engage with leading commercial vendors. We look forward to continuing our work with the ISC team to produce a very competitive and fun challenge for all involved.”

“The HPCAC-ISC Student Cluster Competition is an opportunity to showcase our brightest students’ expertise in a friendly, yet spirited competition,” said Martin Meuer, managing director of the ISC Group. “We look forward to working with the HPC Advisory Council and are excited to, once again, host this very engaging competition at next year’s ISC.”

“The HPCAC-ISC Student Cluster Competition is a great showcase for both the universities and their student teams,” said Dan Olds, principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group. “Students who participate in these competitions find it jumpstarts their careers in technology and research. We’ve also seen universities use these events as a way to increase the breadth and depth of their HPC curriculums.”

The overall winner of the fourth annual HPCAC-ISC Student Cluster Competition was the Tsinghua University team from China. The defending champion from the 2013 and 2014 competitions, Centre for High Performance Computing in South Africa, became the second place overall winner and University of Science and Technology of China captured third place overall. The highest LINPACK performance of 10.78TF was attained by the Jamia Millia Islamia team from India under the 3kW power envelop. The fan favorite prize was awarded to the hybrid team of Purdue University of USA and Universidad EAFIT of Colombia.

Submissions are open now with detailed information and criteria on the HPC Advisory Council website, as well the ISC High Performance web site. Team preparation prior to the competition includes working with supervisors and vendor partners to design and build a winning cluster from commercially available components not exceeding power limit, and to learn the predetermined HPC applications.

Sponsor the HPCAC-ISC Student Cluster Competition and become an advocate for the future of HPC:

The HPC Advisory Council and ISC together offer high-tech enterprises, which utilize the power of HPC in their business, the opportunity to sponsor the SCC in a variety of ways. All sponsorship funds will flow directly into the competition, enabling the students to travel to Frankfurt and participate in the competition for four days in a comfortable environment. For more information, sponsorship and general questions please email [email protected].

About ISC High Performance

Now in its 31st year, ISC is the world’s oldest and one of the most important conferences for the HPC community, offering a strong five-day technical program with a wide range of expert speakers and exhibits from leading research centers and vendors. A number of events complement the technical program, including Tutorials, Workshops, TOP500 Announcement, Research Paper Sessions, Birds of a Feather (BoF) Sessions, Research Poster Session, Exhibitor and Start-up Forums and the popular “Vendor Showdown” featuring leaders from industry and research centers.

ISC is open to IT-decision makers, scientists, members of the HPC global community and other interested parties. The ISC exhibition allows analysts, decision-makers from the automotive, defense, aeronautical, gas & oil, banking and other industries; solution providers, data storage suppliers, distributors, hardware and software manufacturers, the media, scientists and universities to see and learn firsthand about new products, applications and technological advances in the supercomputing industry today.

About the HPC Advisory Council

The HPC Advisory Council’s mission is to bridge the gap between high-performance computing (HPC) use and its potential, bring the beneficial capabilities of HPC to new users for better research, education, innovation and product manufacturing, bring users the expertise needed to operate HPC systems, provide application designers with the tools needed to enable parallel computing, and to strengthen the qualification and integration of HPC system products. For more information about the HPC Advisory Council, please visit www.hpcadvisorycouncil.com.

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Source: HPC Advisory Council