"More than 20 years ago, I went to the SC Conference in the United States, and I could hardly meet people from the mainland."
Talking about this past, Qian Depei, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has mixed feelings. What he calls the "SC Conference" is the Global Supercomputing Conference, which is also an annual event for the entire supercomputing industry. This conference has always been regarded as a supercomputing weather vane, and there is no doubt that being able to participate in such a grand event will be of great benefit to grasping the direction of supercomputing development and understanding the top technology of supercomputing. But as Academician Qian said, chinese supercomputing practitioners more than 20 years ago had difficulty in having such an opportunity.
Qian Depei, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, delivered a speech at the ASC18 meeting
"Now that you're at this conference, you can see Chinese everywhere, so I say Chinese's status and display on the supercomputing world stage has increased greatly." Indeed, in recent years, China's supercomputing field has developed rapidly, especially in the past 10 years, China has built 9 new state-level supercomputing centers, won the "Gordon Bell" award known as the "pearl of supercomputing crown" for three times, and has cultivated many practitioners and enthusiasts of supercomputing applications. "The rules are set by others, not by us, we follow the rules of others, but they are developing rapidly." When talking about the speed of supercomputing development, Academician Qian was very pleased.
An Hong, a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Computer Science and Technology of the University of Science and Technology of China, is also deeply touched by this. Ten years ago, in 2012, Professor An led the "Hongyan Team" of the University of Science and Technology of China to salt lake city for the first time to participate in the SC12 supercomputing competition for college students, and achieved good results.
An Hong, professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Computer Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China
However, compared with these achievements, An Hong pays more attention to the cultivation of students' abilities and the process of competition itself: "Once when we participated in the competition, we were very fortunate to meet Mr. Gordon Bell and take a group photo with him", when talking about this past, Professor An Hong is still difficult to hide his excitement. "Not only to bring students to the world, but also to communicate with world-class experts and students from many top international universities, which broadens their horizons."
Also thrilling to the students was Jack Dongarra, an "industry titan", the initiator of the TOP500 list, and an academician of the American Academy of Engineering. In contrast to a chance encounter in the SC competition, the members of the "Hongyan Team" who participate in the ASC Supercomputing Competition now have the opportunity to communicate with Jack Dongarra face-to-face every year, because the latter has become the chairman of the ASC Competition Expert Committee.
I took a group photo with Professor Jack Dongarra at the ASC19 competition
In those years of events that were not affected by the epidemic, Jack Dongarra would cross the Pacific Ocean to the finals to talk to every team and every team member. Even I have had the privilege of participating in many interviews with Jack Dongarra, and I was deeply impressed by his understanding of the development of the supercomputing industry, his desire for supercomputing talent training, and his affirmation of the development of China's supercomputing.
These characters, who were once only seen in books, can now communicate with students face-to-face, and this feeling is incomparable to how many books and papers they read, and what provides this face-to-face communication opportunity for students in Guangdong University is the largest and most far-reaching today--ASC World College Supercomputer Competition. Academician Qian Depei, who we mentioned at the beginning of the article, is one of the two initiators of this competition, and the other initiator is Wang Endong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Wang Endong, initiator of the ASC competition and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering
"Promoting the cultivation of supercomputing young people is the original intention of the ASC competition," said Academician Wang. From Tsinghuayuan in 2012 to the University of Science and Technology of China in 2022, the ASC supercomputing competition has gone through 10 years and has become the world's largest and most influential college supercomputing competition. "In the past ten years, the ASC competition has attracted more than 10,000 young people from universities on six continents around the world to participate in the competition, and a considerable number of students have increased their understanding of supercomputing through the competition, broadened their horizons, and devoted themselves to the application of supercomputing after graduation, and have made achievements and become the supercomputing force of the new generation."
It's hard to say who promoted the ASC competition and the development of the supercomputing industry, but in my opinion, the two are more complementary. In the past 10 years, China Supercomputing has achieved rapid growth momentum, winning 10 TOP500 global laurels, and the cultivation of Chinese supercomputing talents has also mushroomed everywhere. Remember that there were only 27 teams participating in the 2012 competition, and only 6 teams entered the final circle; but by 2021, more than 300 university teams around the world signed up to participate, and after the preliminary selection, 28 teams finally advanced to the finals, which is more than 10 times the gap between the participating teams, not only the success of the ASC competition, but also means the comprehensive coverage of the supercomputing influence.
Xu Shizhen was the captain of the Tsinghua University team in the first China College Supercomputing Competition (the predecessor of the ASC Competition) in 2012, and the first batch of college students to contact the supercomputing competition. In the group photo of that year's competition, you can easily see the young man in the middle. Now 10 years later, the years have brought him more traces of growth, the captain of the year has become an industry elite, as the chief architect of Rayleigh Wisdom RealAI, but he is still engaged in the supercomputing industry he loves, and is also committed to changing the world through programs and code. Whenever he talked about the experience of participating in the competition that year, Xu Shizhen still felt that his memory was still fresh.
Group photo of the first ASC competition (Xu Shizhen in the back row left)
"The 2012 supercomputing competition is still a niche competition among students. After ten years of development, the topic of the competition has also kept pace with the times, from traditional scientific computing applications, gradually iterative to some cutting-edge new applications represented by AI, including other fields... Therefore, the supercomputing competition, as a very important and unique and very effective form of supercomputing talent training, enlightens and exports a large number of supercomputing talents for us", as the "master brother" of the ASC supercomputing competition, he also put forward expectations for the current and even future team members - "It is strongly recommended that all participating students cherish the opportunity to exercise in the supercomputing competition, after all, learning and training opportunities such as large clusters, large applications, and high barriers are not often available."
In fact, there are countless cases like Xu Shizhen, and Chen Bingyi, a member of the Sun Yat-sen University team who has participated in the ASC13 and ASC14 competitions, is also deeply influenced by the competition and is still engaged in supercomputing architecture related work. In 2017, Chen Bingyi participated as a doctoral student in the team research of the "Nonlinear Earthquake Simulation" project, which eventually won the "Gordon Bell" award, which became the second "Gordon Bell" award won by China.
2017 "Gordon Bell" Awards Ceremony (Chen Bingyi, fourth from left)
When talking about the impact of the ASC competition on himself, Chen Bingyi excitedly said: "ASC represents the supercomputing competition of students, and the Gordon Bell Award represents the supercomputing competition of researchers. ASC has brought me not only thinking in the field of high performance, but also brought me vision and opportunities, you can communicate with team members and teachers from all over the world, you can also understand the most cutting-edge science and technology in the field of high performance, this benefit is multifaceted, has been affected by my later publications and winning the Gordon Bell Award, and after graduation engaged in architecture-related research and work."
In fact, in addition to the depth of talent training, the ASC competition also broadens the breadth of supercomputing talent popularization. In the past, when it comes to college student competitions, whether it is mathematics, physics or supercomputing competitions, the first thing that comes to mind is that many famous schools, and it seems that only top universities can participate in such competitions. However, in the past 10 years, the ASC supercomputing competition, like the supercomputing industry, has become more "grounded" and "grounded" from the former Yangchun white snow, and has also attracted the participation of universities at all levels from all over the world, all over the country, and has also made the "spark of stars" of supercomputing show a burning trend. In this regard, Liu Jun, a member of the ASC Organizing Committee, was deeply touched.
As a "veteran" of the supercomputing industry, Liu Jun witnessed the whole process of how the ASC competition was gradually from small to large, and in the memory of the past 10 years, what he never forgot was the scene of Weifang College winning the award in the ASC17 competition. "In 2017, Weifang College from Weifang, Shandong Province, broke the record of computing performance at that time in the finals, and this event is worth writing on the history of Weifang College." When talking about this, Liu Jun's excitement overflowed into words, which was also regarded by him as an important symbol of the popularization of ASC competitions.
ASC17 on-site results announcement list
In the ASC17 Finals in April 2017, the Weifang Academy team that broke into the finals for the first time created a floating-point operation speed of 31.7 trillion times per second under the condition of 3000W power consumption constraints in the HPL project, breaking the world record of HPL computing performance in the international supercomputing competition of 31.15 trillion times per second in one fell swoop, and won a single award. As a witness to the scene, I still remember the surprised expressions of many of the participants when the results were announced. Perhaps in the eyes of many people, the HPL project champion may belong to a strong team, but I did not expect that the Weifang College representative team, a team from ordinary undergraduate universities, withstood the pressure and became a "dark horse" that stood out, which became a good story in the history of ASC competitions.
There is an old Chinese saying: "Ten years of trees, a hundred years of tree people". In the field of supercomputing, the ASC competition has selected and cultivated many outstanding talents for the industry in the past decade, and behind the seemingly easy competition, there are many people such as players and coaches. "Although there are only 5 students participating in the competition, behind these 5 students, we may have used dozens of expert teachers and even school leaders to support them behind them," said An Hong when talking about the guarantee of the competition.
College students are the main force of the country's future science and technology, and cultivating the awareness and practical skills of college students to use supercomputing is crucial for the future development of the industry. In addition to the competition, the supercomputing seminar organized during the ASC competition every year, the "Introduction to the Supercomputing Competition" published by the ASC Organizing Committee and other monographs have provided new ways and thinking for the training of supercomputing talents, and also promoted the depth and breadth of supercomputing applications.
As Qian Depei said when talking about the ASC competition: "Supercomputing talents are multidisciplinary and cross-compound talents, and the ten years since the ASC supercomputing competition has been carried out is not only a golden decade for the development of the mainland supercomputing industry, but also a decade in which the training of mainland supercomputing talents has made great progress." There is no doubt that in the past decade, the ASC competition has proved its own value with actions, and has also promoted the rapid development of China's supercomputing, and even Academician Qian used "beyond expectations" as a summary; at the same time, he also hopes that with the development of China's economy, more and more supercomputing talents and even global talents will join it, "not only for the benefit of China, but also for the benefit of all mankind."
ASC Supercomputing Competition, looking forward to the next decade.