BEIJING, May 18, 2023 — The 10th ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge (ASC) Finals recently concluded at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei. For the onsite competition, Peking University emerged as the overall Champion, while USTC secured the Silver Prize and e Prize, marking a remarkable achievement.

Zhejiang University was honored with the Highest LINPACK award, alongside several other teams who garnered prestigious honors. In the virtual competition, the team from the Chinese University of Hong Kong emerged as the champion, while the teams from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, National Tsing Hua University, and Kasetsart University were recognized with the Application Innovation Award.

Over 300 teams from universities worldwide participated in the 10th ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge. Following the preliminary contests, the Top 24 teams advanced to the finals. Among them, the Top 20 teams from the Chinese mainland competed onsite, while others engaged in virtual participation through the AWS cloud computing platform.

During the finals, teams showcased their prowess by designing and constructing cluster systems with a maximum power consumption of 3,000 W. Furthermore, they were tasked with running and optimizing cutting-edge scientific and engineering applications, such as HPL and HPCG benchmarks, Large Language Model, DeePMD, WRF-Hydro, and FVCOM. Remarkably, the 10th ASC featured a group competition, with 24 teams divided into 4 groups, tackling the current application of random quantum circuit sampling simulation.

The competition reached its pinnacle with Peking University ultimately clinching the coveted Champion title. The team demonstrated exceptional performance across various tasks, including WRF-Hydro and DeePMD, showcasing profound expertise in comprehensive supercomputing systems, applications, and outstanding optimization abilities. Meanwhile, the USTC team secured the Silver Prize, excelling in tasks such as Large Language Model and HPL&HPCG benchmarks.

USTC’s team delivered outstanding results in the challenging Large Language Model task, employing cutting-edge large model parallel strategies, computing acceleration algorithms, and video memory optimization techniques. Their considerations of training speed and loss-convergence led to the team’s remarkable performance, earning them the esteemed e Prize.

Zhejiang University’s team, operating within the specified 3,000W power consumption limit, attained an impressive floating-point performance of 109 TFLOPs, ultimately securing them the Highest LINPACK award.

A collaborative effort by the Southern University of Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Qilu University of Technology, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong resulted in efficient optimization of random quantum circuit sampling simulation. Their commendable efforts were rewarded with the Group Competition Award.

Furthermore, Qinghai University’s outstanding performance earned them the Application Innovation Award.

Jack Dongarra, Member of US National Academy of Engineering, winner of the Turing Award, Distinguished Professor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee, and ASC Advisory Committee Chair said in the 10th ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge Finals’ closing ceremony, “The goal of the ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge is to foster the next generation of young talent, to inspire exploration, innovation, and collaboration in supercomputing and AI. Your efforts in designing, building, tuning, and optimizing your HPC systems, benchmarks and real scientific applications with a 3 kilowatt power cap are truly inspirational.”

About ASC

The ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge stands as the world’s most extensive competition in student supercomputing, expertly organized and sponsored by the Asia Supercomputer Community with support from esteemed institutions and experts across Asia, Europe, and America. ASC’s primary goals encompass fostering international exchange and training for budding supercomputing talents, enhancing applications and research capabilities in the field, propelling the advancement of supercomputing technologies, and stimulating technical and industrial innovation. Since its inception in 2012, the ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge has attracted close to 10,000 undergraduate participants hailing from all corners of the globe. Learn more about ASC at http://asc-events.org.

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Source: ASC