June 29, 2023 — The Supercomputing Club of San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego organized a local, independent student cluster competition called the Single Board Cluster Competition that took place last month.

In the day-long competition, teams were challenged to create the most efficient cluster using single board computers—PCs inclusive of all components in one board—to perform complex tasks while remaining below the power and cost limits. Southern California teams from UC San Diego, Pasadena City College, Southwestern College and an international team from Denmark’s Aalborg University (AAU) participated.

“Participants ran several benchmarks to showcase the performance of their clusters,” said Mary Thomas, who mentors the SCC team and oversaw the competition. “We were very pleased with the turn-out, and it was great to see all the students cheer one another on.”

While the AAU team won the overall competition, Pasadena City College placed second, UC San Diego came in third and Southwestern College finished in fourth place.

About Single Board Cluster Competition

The Single Board Cluster Competition is a student competition where efficiency is the key to success. In this competition, students are challenged to create the most efficient single board computer cluster that can perform complex tasks while using the least amount of power and resources. To learn more, please visit https://sbcc.io.

About SDSC

The San Diego Supercomputer Center is a leader and pioneer in high-performance and data-intensive computing, providing cyberinfrastructure resources, services, and expertise to the national research community, academia, and industry. Located on the UC San Diego campus and serving the University of California system and beyond, SDSC supports hundreds of multidisciplinary programs spanning a wide variety of domains, from astrophysics and earth sciences to disease research and drug discovery.

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Source: Kimberly Mann Bruch, SDSC