Winter Classic Invitational Applications Announced

WINTER CLASSIC INVITATIONAL STUDENT CLUSTER COMPETITION ANNOUNCES SUPERCOMPUTING APPLICATIONS TO BE USED IN VIRTUAL MARCH 15, 2021 EVENT

BEAVERTON, OR., September 3, 2020 – The Winter Classic Invitational Student Cluster Competition Committee has published the slate of HPC benchmarks and real world supercomputing applications that will be included in the event.

This inaugural competition is the first student cluster competition to proactively recruit historically black and minority universities will take place March 15-19, 2021 in a virtual format remotely running on vendor-provided hardware in vendor data centers.

Student teams compete to see which team can run industry standard supercomputing benchmarks along with a suite of applications. Benchmarks for the faceoff include HPL (LINPACK) and HPCG.

Applications for this competition have been specially selected to relate to the current COVID-19 virus and include:

• LAAMPS: an application that is used for molecular dynamics simulation.
• GROMACS: which is typically used to simulate proteins, lipids and nucleic acids and is currently being used simulate COVID-19 on supercomputers around the world.
• NAMD: is another molecular simulation program that is being used by the Texas Advanced Computer Center to simulate COVID-19.
• OpenFOAM: a computational fluid dynamics simulator that is being used to analyze and model aerosol transmission of COVID-19.

“We think that this particular set of applications will provide the students with a very deep understanding of how HPC is used to attack relevant problems like COVID-19,” said Dan Olds, leader of the competition committee and event organizer. “Students will also learn how to compile, tune, and optimize HPC applications, giving them a highly marketable skill for future employment.”

This Winter Classic Invitational Student Cluster Competition, joins SC, ISC and ASC global competitions as the fourth major cluster competition held annually to support the need to mentor and learn for university students interested in HPC, AI and science based computation.

Applications for schools are available now, on the Winter Classic Invitational website. Prospective vendor sponsors can obtain more information by contacting the competition committee.

Cash prizes and scholarships will be granted to winning competition participants. This includes the Brueckner Award which honors long-time HPC journalist Rich Brueckner.

Contact:

Dan Olds

Dan.Olds@gabrielconsultinggroup.com

(503) 372-9389

About the Winter Classic Invitational Student Cluster Competition

The WCISCC is led by Dan Olds, with his 25 years in the high technology industry, including positions with Sun Microsystems, IBM, and currently as head analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group. Dan has been a judge and organizer and has covered every student cluster competition since 2010. His coverage includes hundreds of articles and videos that have appeared in The Register, InsideHPC and HPCwire where he continues to contribute ongoing. For more info, please visit the WCISCC website.

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