NTHU Team Steals the Show at the ASC20-21 Student Supercomputer Challenge

A student team from the Department of Computer Science at National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) in Taiwan has recently won the championship at the World Supercomputer Student Cluster Competition (SCC) held in Dallas, USA. This was the fifth championship won by an NTHU team at the two largest supercomputer competitions in recent years.

The team’s advisor was Professor Jerry Chou (周志遠) of the Department of Computer Science. The six team members were Department of Computer Science seniors Mou Chan-yu (牟展佑), Chang Fu-chiang (張富強), and Ting Hsu-tzu (丁緒慈), and Department of Computer Science juniors Huang En-ming (黃恩明), Kuo Pin-yi (郭品毅), and Wu Pang-ning (吳邦寧). The team’s coach was Tsai Kuo-Guang (蔡闊光), a graduate student from the Department of Computer Science with rich experience in computer competitions.

The SCC gives college students a chance to test their skills in three areas: the integration of software and hardware, program performance, and cross-disciplinary knowledge. Since the competition lasts for 56 hours without interruption, it also poses a significant challenge to the participants’ stamina and ability to work under stress. When the results were announced, Chou and his team broke out into a robust cheer.

Chou said that he has been leading the team for ten years, and that this year they ran into a lot of mishaps. The team captain, Mou Chan-yu, broke his leg in a traffic accident a week before the competition, and almost had to drop out. What’s more, a few hours before the competition began, they discovered that some of their computer equipment got damaged during shipment, but they managed to overcome the problem by adjusting the computer configuration and their competition strategy. In the end, the team rose to the occasion, and came through with flying colors.

While undergoing an operation, team captain Mou had to temporarily hand over the job of building the system to Kuo Pin-yi. Fortunately, the doctor gave him the go-ahead to participate in the competition with the aid of a wheelchair. Despite considerable pain, he managed to lead the team in every way during the 3-day competition, including their efforts to find the solution to the Mystery Application.

The areas tested in this year’s competition were material fracture analysis, fluid dynamics simulation, and earthquake dynamics, all of which require a strong knowledge of these various fields. Ting Hsu-tzu was in charge of the fluid dynamics simulation, and she spent a lot of time familiarizing herself with scholarship in the field while preparing for the competition. Chang Fu-chiang and Huang En-ming shouldered the heavy responsibility of coordinating the team and verifying the results.

Chou thanked the National Center for High-performance Computing for providing funding and training, and Quanta Cloud Technology for contributing essential equipment and travel expenses over the past ten years. The team also thanked NTHU for providing space, equipment, and, most importantly, an interdisciplinary learning environment.

The NTHU team previously won the SCC in 2010 and 2011, and also won the Student Supercomputer Challenge in 2019 and 2021.A team from NTHU’s Department of Computer Science has recently won the Championship in the online group of the 2020-2021 ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge, outperforming more than 300 teams representing prestigious universities around the world. This was the fourth time in recent years that a major computing competition has been won by a team from NTHU’s Department of Computer Science.

The three most important worldwide supercomputer competitions for university teams are those held by the ASC of China, the SCC of the United States, and the ISC of Germany. The ASC competition was suspended last year due to the pandemic, but resumed this year, albeit partially online. A total of 28 teams advanced to the finals. The on-site competition was held in Shenzhen; 21 teams from China participated, and seven overseas teams participated online.

NTHU is a force to be reckoned with in the circle of supercomputer competitions. At the ASC competition, NTHU team won the Championship in 2019, the Highest LINPACK Award in 2018, and the First Class Award and the Innovation Award in 2017. At the SCC competition in the United States, NTHU team won the Championship in 2010 and 2011, and won the Highest LINPACK Award in 2007, 2008, and 2014.

The team’s advisor was Prof. Jerry Chou (周志遠)of the Department of Computer Science, who for many years has been training students to participate in similar competitions. He said that supercomputer competitions hone students’ ability to use software and hardware in solving various real-world problems. In addition to basic skills, participants must also have a strong knowledge of various related fields and know how to apply it in different situations—a strength which his teams have consistently demonstrated over the years.

This year’s team consisted of juniors Wang Tzuwen(王子文), Huang Wenyuan(黃文遠), and Chang Chenghsun(張承勛), and sophomores Mou Chanyu(牟展佑) and Chiang Liyuan(蔣立元). Team captain Wang Tzuwen said that his team began preparing for the competition in the summer of 2019, with training provided by senior classmates Hsiao Yicheng(蕭亦程) and Lin Ente(林恩德). During this year’s winter vacation they began preparing for the preliminaries, training for more than ten hours a day.

Wang said that this year’s ASC finals were held on May 8. During the five-day marathon-style competition, the first two days are for installation, the next two days are for competition, and the final day is for reporting the results. In comparison to previous years, competing online was more challenging, because the virtual machines on the cloud platform weren’t made available until the competition began. In addition to deciding on the optimal division of labor, the team had to quickly install and become familiar with the software so that they could start their calculations.

In this year’s finals there were four topics, three of which were announced in advance. The topics were: using artificial intelligence to understand natural language, searching for pulsars, quantum computer simulation, and weather simulation. There was also an independently scored topic requiring cooperation between teams: devising an effective calculation method for use in predicting the evolution of the coronavirus.

Wang and Huang tackled the topic on artificial intelligence by using the BERT language model to enable the computer to do a cloze test. They finished within an hour, and their work was scored at 85% for accuracy.

Mou and Chang handled the topic on pulsar searching. A pulsar consists of the remnants of a fixed star of huge stellar mass. Amongst all celestial bodies, pulsars have the highest density, the strongest magnetic field, and the fastest rotation. The finalists were tasked with using open source software to search for pulsars. The Tsinghua team successfully completed the task in two hours by searching about 160GB of data from an astronomical telescope.

“A pulsar is rather like a lighthouse in outer space; the regular signals it emits can be used in time calibration and astronomical research,” explained Mou. As it turns out, Mou took a course in astronomy during his sophomore year, and thus had the background necessary for understanding the topic and devising an efficient formula.

Chiang was tasked with the topic on quantum computer simulation. He said that two days before the competition he learned that the parameters were different from the ones they were expecting, and the amount of memory required to run the program was far more than anticipated, so he had to rewrite the program on the spot, which he found both challenging and exciting.

Chou gave a special word of thanks to NTHU and the Department of Computer Science for the support provided to student teams over the years; he also thanked the National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC) for its technical guidance, and Quanta Cloud Technology and Nvidia computer systems for providing funding and equipment.

The award-winning team. Front row, beginning on left: Jerry Chou(周志遠) (advisor), Wang Ziwen (王子文)(team captain), Chang Chenghsun(張承勛), and Hsiao Yicheng(蕭亦程) (coach); back row, beginning on left: Mou Chanyu(牟展佑), Chiang Liyuan(蔣立元), and Huang Wenyuan(黃文遠).

The NTHU team which has recently won the Championship in the online group of the 2020-2021 ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge (left to right): Jiang, Huang, Wang, Zhang, and Mou.

Team members (left to right) Huang, Chang, and Wang preparing for the competition.

Wang helped tackle the topic on artificial intelligence by teaching the computer to do a cloze test.

Huang helped tackle the topic on artificial intelligence by teaching the computer to do a cloze test.

Mou used open source software to search for pulsars.

Designed by Hsiao, the team’s logo features NTHU’s mascot, the panda.

• Team Members: Wang Ziwen (王子文)(team captain), Chang Chenghsun(張承勛), Mou Chanyu(牟展佑), Chiang Liyuan(蔣立元), and Huang Wenyuan(黃文遠).
• Student Coaches: Hsiao Yicheng(蕭亦程) (coach)
• Advisor: Jerry Chou

Reference: https://nthu-en.site.nthu.edu.tw/p/406-1003-211479,r8773.php