SUNNYVALE, Calif. and SINGAPORE, March 3, 2021 — The HPC-AI Advisory Council (HPCAIAC) and National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore today announced the immediate opening and acceptance of student team proposals for entry consideration in the jointly organized and hosted 2021 APAC HPC-AI Competition. Focused on showcasing the region’s top technical institutions and colleges, submissions for the 4th annual competition are being accepted through the end of April and open to teams across APAC comprised of currently enrolled undergraduate, upper level and advanced degree students skilled in state-of-the-art high performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI).

“It has been over a year since the COVID-19 virus was discovered and its effects are still being felt by populations and societies all over the world. As we continue to sift through the damage and impact that the pandemic has caused, we are also mindful of the lessons we have learned,” said Associate Professor Tan Tin Wee, Chief Executive at NSCC. “The key takeaway from the pandemic must be the importance of being prepared. Initiatives like the APAC HPC-AI competition play a crucial role in training, nurturing and equipping the next generation of HPC and AI professionals with the necessary skills needed to tackle future global challenges, such as pandemics.”

Following the end of April final roster reveal, 2021 challengers will balance academic courses along with demands of the six-month competition. Through NSCC’s generosity, student competitors will have hands-on access to the Singapore-based center’s advanced supercomputing resources. Dedicating cycle time provides students the same privileged hands-on access as the research community. Teams will be tasked with mastering the same complex HPC and AI workloads that are integral to today’s major advances.

Collaborating and competing remotely for the duration of the competition, each selected team must demonstrate domain and discipline mastery in two main HPC and AI areas:

Molecular Dynamics Simulation using GROningen MAchine for Chemical Simulations (GROMACS), the popular simulation tool designed for biochemical molecules like proteins and nucleic acids.

Deep Learning Recommendation Model (DLRM), the Facebook developed neural network-based (PyTorch and Caffe2) frameworks designed to scale out compute from fully connected layers.

“HPC and AI are essential tools fueling major advances in science, and are more critical now, than ever,” said Gilad Shainer, HPC-AI Advisory Council chairman. “While these students confront a second year of pandemic, quarantine and coursework, they all come away from this experience far ahead of their contemporaries. The competition not only instills competitive spirit, it provides students an opportunity to establish professional relationships early on including lifelong comraderies amongst competing cohorts and future colleagues.”

Competing for up to $5,000 in (USD) cash prize awards, with the grand champion team gaining entry to the annual ISC Student Cluster Competition in Germany, the winning teams will be announced in November followed by an official award ceremony in the new year, celebrating all competitors at SupercomputingAsia 2022.

For more information on the APAC HPC-AI Competition please visit hpcadvisorycouncil.com.

About HPC-AI Advisory Council

Founded in 2008, The HPC-AI Advisory Council (HPCAIAC) is a for community benefit organization with over 400 members committed to promoting HPC and AI through education and outreach.

About National Supercomputing Centre Singapore

Established in 2015, the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore manages Singapore’s first national Petascale facility providing high performance computing (HPC) resources. As a National Research Infrastructure, NSCC supports private and public sector research including commercial companies, government agencies as well as higher education and research institutes. Through the support of its stakeholders including the Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR); Nanyang Technological University (NTU); National University of Singapore (NUS); Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD); the National Environment Agency (NEA) and Technology Centre for Offshore and Marine, Singapore (TCOMS); and funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF), NSCC catalyses national research and development initiatives, attracts industrial research collaborations and enhances Singapore’s research capabilities. For more information, please visit: nscc.sg

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Source: HPCAIAC