GCS Supports Three University Teams in ISC20 Student Cluster Competition

May 29, 2020

May 29, 2020 — The Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS) is pleased to announce that it is repeating its role as co-sponsor of undergraduate students participating in the Student Cluster Competition (SCC) at the annual International Supercomputing Conference (ISC). The teams supported by GCS—the teams representing the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU), the Hamburg University, and Heidelberg University—are 3 of the 14 participants qualified for the contest. Other competitors come from China, Indonesia, Lithuania, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the U.K.

The SCC occurs in conjunction with the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC), which was scheduled to take place in Frankfurt/Main. However, due to the COVID-19 crisis, ISC will now be held in digital form June 22–24, and the SCC will take place in remote form as an online competition, running June 1–24. Utilizing the supercomputing platforms kindly provided by the National Supercomputing Center Singapore, the student teams will be tasked to configure, code, and benchmark a series of high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Joining the global fight against COVID-19, several applications being used by scientists and researchers for fighting the virus will additionally have to be tested by the students.

In getting prepared for this year’s cluster competition, the German student teams had to cope with and unprecedented scenario. Just like HPC professionals and countless other sectors of the global economy, face-to-face team meetings and on-site-training at the university campuses have been impossible to organize. That means all the students’ preparation work has had to happen online—a format which has now been applied to the competition itself too. “Working online is the de facto standard in the world of HPC, the live event at ISC has always been a great opportunity for ‘HPC newcomers’ to actually meet a broad variety of people from all over the world and especially world class HPC experts. While this may seem less important to an experienced ISC attendee, for the students it is often the key trigger for an enthusiastic future in HPC. However, I highly appreciate the extra effort of the organizers to make this event possible, even or especially in these extremely different, difficult and busy times”, comments Alexander Ditter, advisor of team segFAUlt, representing Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg.

Despite all unplanned changes, the German teams are making the best of the given situation and even find some positive aspects in the competition’s online format. “As far as providing a basis for a fair and balanced competition is concerned, this competition will definitely be different from the past,” explains Michael Kuhn, coach of the team representing the Hamburg University. “As we all will be utilizing the same HPC platform, identical conditions will apply to all teams.” This aspect is backed by Aksel Alpay, advisor of the Heidelberg University team. “Since we all will be ‘normal users’ being granted ‘identical user rights’, minor differences in our knowledge as to how to configure, code, and benchmark the HPC and AI application tasks might eventually make the essential difference. The competition will for sure be very special, and very exciting,” Alpay says.

As in the past years, GCS supports the German SCC teams by supplying a financial buffer to cover expenses related to the competition. Additionally, GCS’s User Services and Support group was available for the students to provide training and HPC support in the lead up to the event. “We are happy to continue with our engagement to support German HPC talent,” says Dr. Claus Axel Müller, managing director of GCS. “It is very important for us to attract students to the world of HPC and foster their motivation and interest. We wish all teams success, best of luck, and lots of fun in this unique version of the annual student competition.”

The three German student teams participating in the ISC 2020 Student Cluster Competition:

Team segFAUlt of Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg. Back, left to right: Jakob Emmerling (substituted by Felix Geiter/not shown*), Maximilian Ley (Team Captain), Johannes Bonk, Veit Götz. Front, from left: Simon Prucker, Niklas Heidenreich (substituted by Nico Heinz/not shown*): Advisors (not shown): Alexander Ditter and Benedikt Oehlrich. Image courtesy of FAU *due to COVID-19 related restrictions, an updated team foto could not be taken.

Team University of Hamburg. Top, left to right: Daniel Bremer, Felix Maurer, Johannes Coym, Julius Plehn, Michael Kuhn (advisor). Bottom, left ot right: Lina Meyer, Roland Fredenhagen, Ruben Felgenhauer, Yannik Könneker, Jannek Squar (advisor) Image courtesy of Hamburg University.

Team Heidelberg. Back, left to right: Christoph Smaczny, Christian Heusel, Holger Wünsche, Falk Loewner. Front, left to right: Yajie Liang, Robin Heinemann, Aksel Alpay (advisor). Not shown: Sabine Richling (advisor). Image courtesy of Heidelberg University.

Additional Information about the Student Cluster Competition at ISC20 is available at https://www.isc-hpc.com/student-cluster-competition.html and https://www.hpcadvisorycouncil.com/events/student-cluster-competition/

About GCS

The Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS) combines the three German national supercomputing centres HLRS (High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart), JSC (Jülich Supercomputing Centre), and LRZ (Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, Garching near Munich) into Germany’s integrated Tier-0 supercomputing institution. Together, the three centres provide the largest, most powerful supercomputing infrastructure in all of Europe to serve a wide range of academic and industrial research activities in various disciplines. They also provide top-tier training and education for the national as well as the European High Performance Computing (HPC) community. GCS is the German member of PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), an international non-profit association consisting of 26 member countries, whose representative organizations create a pan-European supercomputing infrastructure, providing access to computing and data management resources and services for large-scale scientific and engineering applications at the highest performance level.


Source: Gauss Centre for Supercomputing

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from its predecessors, including the red-hot H100 and A100 GPUs. Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. While Nvidia may not spring to mind when thinking of the quant Read more…

2024 Winter Classic: Meet the HPE Mentors

March 18, 2024

The latest installment of the 2024 Winter Classic Studio Update Show features our interview with the HPE mentor team who introduced our student teams to the joys (and potential sorrows) of the HPL (LINPACK) and accompany Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the field was normalized for boys in 1969 when the Apollo 11 missi Read more…

Apple Buys DarwinAI Deepening its AI Push According to Report

March 14, 2024

Apple has purchased Canadian AI startup DarwinAI according to a Bloomberg report today. Apparently the deal was done early this year but still hasn’t been publicly announced according to the report. Apple is preparing Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimization algorithms to iteratively refine their parameters until Read more…

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. Wh Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the fi Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimizat Read more…

PASQAL Issues Roadmap to 10,000 Qubits in 2026 and Fault Tolerance in 2028

March 13, 2024

Paris-based PASQAL, a developer of neutral atom-based quantum computers, yesterday issued a roadmap for delivering systems with 10,000 physical qubits in 2026 a Read more…

India Is an AI Powerhouse Waiting to Happen, but Challenges Await

March 12, 2024

The Indian government is pushing full speed ahead to make the country an attractive technology base, especially in the hot fields of AI and semiconductors, but Read more…

Charles Tahan Exits National Quantum Coordination Office

March 12, 2024

(March 1, 2024) My first official day at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was June 15, 2020, during the depths of the COVID-19 loc Read more…

AI Bias In the Spotlight On International Women’s Day

March 11, 2024

What impact does AI bias have on women and girls? What can people do to increase female participation in the AI field? These are some of the questions the tech Read more…

Alibaba Shuts Down its Quantum Computing Effort

November 30, 2023

In case you missed it, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research effort. It’s not entirely clear what drove the change. Read more…

Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year?

August 17, 2023

The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more…

Analyst Panel Says Take the Quantum Computing Plunge Now…

November 27, 2023

Should you start exploring quantum computing? Yes, said a panel of analysts convened at Tabor Communications HPC and AI on Wall Street conference earlier this y Read more…

Shutterstock 1285747942

AMD’s Horsepower-packed MI300X GPU Beats Nvidia’s Upcoming H200

December 7, 2023

AMD and Nvidia are locked in an AI performance battle – much like the gaming GPU performance clash the companies have waged for decades. AMD has claimed it Read more…

DoD Takes a Long View of Quantum Computing

December 19, 2023

Given the large sums tied to expensive weapon systems – think $100-million-plus per F-35 fighter – it’s easy to forget the U.S. Department of Defense is a Read more…

Synopsys Eats Ansys: Does HPC Get Indigestion?

February 8, 2024

Recently, it was announced that Synopsys is buying HPC tool developer Ansys. Started in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1970 as Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. (SASI) by John Swanson (and eventually renamed), Ansys serves the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)/multiphysics engineering simulation market. Read more…

Intel’s Server and PC Chip Development Will Blur After 2025

January 15, 2024

Intel's dealing with much more than chip rivals breathing down its neck; it is simultaneously integrating a bevy of new technologies such as chiplets, artificia Read more…

Baidu Exits Quantum, Closely Following Alibaba’s Earlier Move

January 5, 2024

Reuters reported this week that Baidu, China’s giant e-commerce and services provider, is exiting the quantum computing development arena. Reuters reported � Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

Choosing the Right GPU for LLM Inference and Training

December 11, 2023

Accelerating the training and inference processes of deep learning models is crucial for unleashing their true potential and NVIDIA GPUs have emerged as a game- Read more…

Training of 1-Trillion Parameter Scientific AI Begins

November 13, 2023

A US national lab has started training a massive AI brain that could ultimately become the must-have computing resource for scientific researchers. Argonne N Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Addresses the Mysteries of Its Hypercomputer 

December 28, 2023

When Google launched its Hypercomputer earlier this month (December 2023), the first reaction was, "Say what?" It turns out that the Hypercomputer is Google's t Read more…

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

AMD MI3000A

How AMD May Get Across the CUDA Moat

October 5, 2023

When discussing GenAI, the term "GPU" almost always enters the conversation and the topic often moves toward performance and access. Interestingly, the word "GPU" is assumed to mean "Nvidia" products. (As an aside, the popular Nvidia hardware used in GenAI are not technically... Read more…

Shutterstock 1606064203

Meta’s Zuckerberg Puts Its AI Future in the Hands of 600,000 GPUs

January 25, 2024

In under two minutes, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out the company's AI plans, which included a plan to build an artificial intelligence system with the eq Read more…

Google Introduces ‘Hypercomputer’ to Its AI Infrastructure

December 11, 2023

Google ran out of monikers to describe its new AI system released on December 7. Supercomputer perhaps wasn't an apt description, so it settled on Hypercomputer Read more…

China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire