HPC-AI Advisory Council Launches the 7th APAC Student RDMA Programming Competition 2019

BEIJING,May 8,2019 -- The HPC-AI Advisory Council is proud to announce the official start of the Seventh APAC Student RDMA Programming Competition today. Revolving around the theme of demonstrating the use of RDMA (remote direct memory access) for HPC (high performance computing) applications in a container environment,the competition's winning team is set to earn a US$7,500 prize.

As an efficient method for the transmission of data,RDMA technology is widely used in high-performance computing,artificial intelligence,deep learning,storage,big data and high-frequency trading. Compared to the traditional TCP/IP protocol,RDMA technology can remove the intervention of the CPU in the communication,freeing the CPU resources for the application and effectively improving application performance. In recent years,RDMA has been favored by a vast number of Internet companies pursuing extreme performance.

The competition has realized several key achievements over the past six years. In the sixth Student RDMA Programming Competition in 2018,the competition attracted students from more than 50 colleges across China who enrolled and received extensive media coverage as well as attention worldwide from experts in high-performance computing,cloud computing and big data. RDMA technology has become an important means to optimize applications in China. This year,the competition has expanded to include the entire Asia-Pacific region,with the goal of promoting RDMA technology across a wider area,building an RDMA ecosystem encompassing Asia-Pacific countries,andproviding users with more application performance optimization solutions.

This year,the competition has been further upgraded by incorporating the currently popular container technology and requiring teams to optimize HPC applications using RDMA in the container environment,which,in and of itself,is quite a test of technical strength and team cooperation.

According to the organizers,teams are encouraged to freely choose their container scheme and HPC applications for optimization,yet technological innovation remains the key to winning the competition as,as part of the scoring system,with an additional 20 points allocated specifically to this aspect. The competition judges are composed of authoritative high-performance computing and artificial intelligence experts from both within China and abroad,including top-tier professionals from theArgonne National Laboratory and the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Senior RDMA engineers and researchers from top AI companies will also be invited to provide online training and in-depth consultations.

Due to the emphasis on technological innovation and integration with industry,the competition has won strong support from the ChinaComputerFederation (CCF),the China Big Data and Intelligent Computer Industry Alliance,Tsinghua University,Huawei,SenseTime,Excelero,E8 Storage,HPCTC,Mellanox,NVIDIA and WekaIO,among other well-known Chinese and foreign institutions and firms. Winnersof the competition willbe announced at theIntelligent ComputingChinainBeijing in the beginning of November 2019.

The Chair of HPC-AI Advisory Council Asia-Pacific,Song Qingchun said: "No matter whether it's traditional high-performance computing applications or emerging artificial intelligence ones,RDMA communication is the key to improving distributed computing performance. With the popularization of RDMA technology as an application,more and more leading domestic and international firms have applied this technology to different fields,while the value created by RDMA technology continues to increase,in term,leads to a greater demand for RDMA programming talent. This is why we held the competition. We look forward to discovering and cultivating the most talented RDMA developers in the field while improving the application's performance."

CCFHighPerformanceComputingTechnical Committee secretary-general professor,Zhang Yunquan said: "RDMA technology has gradually become a necessary tool in the HPC and AI sector,which is inseparable from the development of the technology itself and the cultivation of talents. All previous RDMA Programming Competitions were aimed at selecting and training the top technical talents in colleges and universities,and promoting the application of RDMA in supercomputers and AI sectors. This is our seventh time as a core supporter of the competition and we believe it will go farther and will become an inexhaustible driving force for the development of China's supercomputers."

Tsinghua University Department of Computer Science and Technology professor,Zhai Jidong said: "After six contests,the RDMA Programming Competition has become an important platform for selecting RDMA technologists. High-performance computing has always been the incubator for all kinds of innovations and applications. With the competition,our students have access to cutting-edge technologies and computing tools in the HPC and AI sectors,to cultivate their comprehensive communication and cooperation abilities in solving the hot issues of the moment with technical practice,and gain the opportunity to listen to the advice of well-known experts from both at home and abroad. They will benefit not only from the improvement of the technology itself,but also from teamwork,industry insights and future employment options."

For more information on the competition visit http://hpcadvisorycouncil.com/events/2019/rdma/.

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