University Teams To Vie for Supercomputing Championship -- Campus Technology

High-Performance Computing (HPC)

University Teams To Vie for Supercomputing Championship

By Michael Hart
12/02/14

Eleven university-based teams from around the world will compete against each other this summer to build the best cluster of supercomputers.

The teams were recently announced for the HPCAC-ISC 2015 Student Cluster Competition to be held during the ISC 2015 conference July 13-15 in Frankfurt, Germany. Formerly known at the International Supercomputing Conference, the competition at ISC 2015 will be held in conjunction with the High Performance Computing Advisory Council (HPCAC).

In a real-time challenge, the teams of six undergraduate students each will build clusters of computers that they have designed on the trade show's exhibit floor and attempt to demonstrate the greatest performance with a series of predetermined challenges and benchmarks.

The 11 teams include:

A combined team of students from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, and Universidad EAFIT in Medellin, Colombia;
Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany;
University of Hamburg, Germany;
University of Sao Paolo, Brazil;
Jamia Millia Islamia, India;
University of Tartu, Estonia;
Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain;
University of Science and Technology of China;
A university in South Africa still to be determined by a competition conducted by the Centre for High Performance Computing; and
Two more universities from China to be determined by a competition conducted during the Asia Student Cluster Competition early next year.

Teams will prepare in advance of the July competition by consulting with instructors and computer vendors to design and build the computer clusters using guidelines that call for the use of commercially available components not to exceed certain power limits. A predetermined set of high performance computer applications will be required.

"This is an opportunity to showcase the world's brightest computer science students' expertise in a friendly, yet spirited, competition," said ISC Group Managing Director Martin Meuer. "We wish all the teams good luck."

About the Author

Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.

E-Mail this page

Printable Format

Featured

OpenAI to Unify AI Models with GPT-5 Launch

OpenAI has scrapped plans to release its o3 model, opting instead for a "simplified" product lineup centered on its upcoming GPT-5 product.
New Boston-Based Research Center to Advance Quantum Computing with AI

NVIDIA is establishing a research hub dedicated to advancing quantum computing through artificial intelligence (AI) and accelerated computing technologies.
Chinese Startup DeepSeek Disrupts AI Market

A new low-cost Chinese artificial intelligence model is wreaking havoc in the technology sector, with tech stocks plummeting globally as concerns grow over the potential disruption it could cause.
Report: 85% of Organizations Are Using Some Form of AI

Eighty-five percent of organizations today are leveraging some form of AI, according to the latest State of AI in the Cloud 2025 report from Wiz. While AI's role in innovation and disruption continues to expand, security vulnerabilities and governance challenges remain pressing concerns.