HPC Advisory Council and the ISC High Performance Conference Announce University Teams for HPCAC-ISC 2016 Student Cluster Competition

The HPC Advisory Council (HPCAC), a leading organization for high-performance computing research, outreach and education, and ISC High Performance, Europe’s premier HPC conference, today announced the 12 university teams from around the world that are selected to compete in the HPCAC-ISC 2016 Student Cluster Competition at ISC 2016 conference and exhibition, held from June 19 – 23, 2016.

The 2016 competition has increased the number of worldwide teams from 11 to 12, and for the first time, it will feature teams from Singapore and Australia. In addition, this year will debut high school students in the competition, expanding the age range of the competition to further foster young talent in the high-performance computing industry.

University-based teams chosen to compete and demonstrate the incredible capabilities of state-of-the-art HPC systems and applications on the ISC 2016 show-floor are as following:

• A combined team of students from Boston University, United States, Harvard, United States, and MIT, United States
• A university to be determined in a run-off competition via the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), South Africa in December 2015
• A combined team of high school and university students sponsored by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), United States
• Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
• Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, Australia
• A combined team of students from Purdue University, United States and University of Colorado, United States
• University of Hamburg, Germany
• University of Tartu, Estonia
• Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC), Spain
• University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), China
• Two additional university teams from China to be determined in a run-off competition via the Asia Student Cluster Competition (ASC) in early 2016

In a real-time challenge, the 12 teams of undergraduate students will build a small cluster of their own design on the ISC 2016 exhibit floor and race to demonstrate the greatest performance across a series of benchmarks and applications. It all concludes with a ceremony on the main conference keynote stage to award and recognize all student participants in front of thousands of HPC luminaries.

“The HPCAC-ISC Student Cluster Competition is designed to introduce the next generation of students to the international high-performance computing community. We are pleased with the increasing number of teams and worldwide mix of universities and students who are participating,” said Gilad Shainer, chairman of the HPC Advisory Council. “This exciting competition is an excellent educational opportunity for students around the world to showcase their knowledge and skillsets, and to engage with leading commercial vendors and the HPC community as a whole. Together, the HPC Advisory Council, ISC Group, and university teams from around the globe, all look forward to this competitive and fun competition.”

“The HPCAC-ISC Student Cluster Competition is an opportunity to showcase the world’s brightest computer science students’ expertise in a friendly, yet spirited competition. We are very pleased to host 12 compelling university teams around the world to compete,” said Martin Meuer, managing director of the ISC Group. “We look forward to this very engaging competition at next year’s ISC High Performance conference and wish all the teams good luck.”

Team preparation prior to the competition includes working with supervisors and vendor partners to design and build a winning cluster from commercially available components not exceeding power limit, and to learn the predetermined HPC applications. For more information, sponsorship and general questions please email scc@isc-events.com.

Sponsor the HPCAC-ISC Student Cluster Competition and become an advocate for the future of HPC:

The HPC Advisory Council and ISC Group together offer high-tech enterprises, which utilize the power of HPC in their business, the opportunity to sponsor the SCC in a variety of ways. All sponsorship funds will flow directly into the competition, enabling the students to travel to Frankfurt and participate in the competition for three days in a comfortable environment. For more information, sponsorship and general questions please email scc@isc-events.com.

Supporting Resources:

• Learn more about the HPCAC-ISC Student Cluster Competition
• Learn how your company can sponsor the next generation of HPC talent
• Follow the HPC Advisory Council on Twitter and Facebook

About ISC High Performance

Now in its 31st year, ISC is the world’s oldest and one of the most important conferences for the HPC community, offering a strong five-day technical program with a wide range of expert speakers and exhibits from leading research centers and vendors. A number of events complement the technical program, including Tutorials, Workshops, TOP500 Announcement, Research Paper Sessions, Birds of a Feather (BoF) Sessions, Research Poster Session, the PhD Forum, Exhibitor Forum and the popular "Vendor Showdown" featuring leaders from industry and research centers.

ISC is open to IT-decision makers, scientists, members of the HPC global community and other interested parties. The ISC exhibition allows analysts, decision-makers from the automotive, defense, aeronautical, gas & oil, banking and other industries; solution providers, data storage suppliers, distributors, hardware and software manufacturers, the media, scientists and universities to see and learn firsthand about new products, applications and technological advances in the supercomputing industry today.

About the HPC Advisory Council

The HPC Advisory Council’s mission is to bridge the gap between high-performance computing (HPC) use and its potential, bring the beneficial capabilities of HPC to new users for better research, education, innovation and product manufacturing, bring users the expertise needed to operate HPC systems, provide application designers with the tools needed to enable parallel computing, and to strengthen the qualification and integration of HPC system products. For more information about the HPC Advisory Council, please visit www.hpcadvisorycouncil.com.

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Contact information

HPC Advisory Council
Brian Sparks, 408-970-3400
info@hpcadvisorycouncil.com