Eight teams representing supercomputer interests from all over the world will be participating in the fun and exciting Intel® Parallel Universe Computing Challenge at SC14. They will be competing for bragging rights and the opportunity to select a charity for an Intel donation of $26,000 (in recognition of SC’s 26th anniversary).
Crowds gathered for the final match at last year’s challenge to see the Coding Illini face the Gaussian Elimination Squad.
The single elimination tournament features a rapid-fire trivia challenge consisting of HPC history and parallel computing questions and a parallel code optimization round. The competition is designed to raise awareness of the importance of parallelization for improving the performance of technical computing applications.
Returning from last year will be the defending champions from Germany, The Gaussian Elimination Squad. They will be joined by another finalist from last year, The Coding Illini, representing the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
Three other groups are also returning from last year with new team names. They are The Brilliant Dummies from South Korea’s Seoul National University, the Invincible Buckeyes from the Ohio Supercomputing Center, and the Linear Scalers from Argonne National Labs.
Three new teams are joining the competition, including SC3 (Super Computación y Calculo Cientifico) representing Latin America, Taiji representing China, and the EXAMEN project team representing Europe.
Host Mike Bernhardt displays the check for the Philippine Red Cross to the 2013 winners, the Gaussian Elimination Squad.
The competition kicks off on Monday evening, November 17 at 8 p.m. during the SC14 Exhibition Opening Gala with The Gaussian Elimination Squad facing the Invincible Buckeyes. The 2014 Parallel Universe Computing Challenge will be hosted by Intel’s Mike Bernhardt and James Reinders.
The trivia challenge in each match consists of HPC history and technical parallel computing questions. Teams will score points based on selecting the correct answer and doing that quickly. The faster a team locks in with a correct answer, the more points they are awarded.
The second round is a parallel code optimization challenge where participants examine a piece of code that has been deconstructed from its optimized, parallel version and apply any code changes they believe will improve the overall performance. The audience will watch the impact of the changes in real-time on large screens.
The audience will also have the chance to get involved answering trivia questions and receiving prizes for correct answers.
Don’t miss these exciting and entertaining matches. Get there early and claim a seat at the Intel Parallel Universe Theater, Booth # 1315.
Get the details on the Intel SC14 website.
Looking for more great content like this? The Print ‘n Fly Guide to SC14 New Orleans is designed to be an in-flight magazine custom tailored for your journey to the Big Easy at SC14. Sponsored by Intel, the Guide will feature articles on code modernization.
Table of Contents: Print ‘n Fly Guide to SC14 New Orleans
- Entering the Era of Code Modernization – Welcome Letter from Raj Hazra, Intel Vice President, Data Center Group & General Manager, Technical Computing Group
- Celebrating Year One – the Intel Parallel Computing Center Program’s First Anniversary: A Q&A with Bob Burroughs, Intel Director of Technical Computing Ecosystem Enabling
- Intel Xeon Phi Takes DownUnder GeoSolutions to New Depths
- This is one Show You Won’t Want to Miss: The Parallel Universe Computing Challenge Returns to SC14
- Meet Me at the Hub. The Intel Community Hub – new for SC14
- SC14 Intel Booth Guide
- City Guide: Safety and Transportation Around New Orleans
- Local’s Guide to New Orleans Cuisine
- Leveraging Parallelism on Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessors and Multicore Processor
- Seismic Code Modernization Yields Petascale Performance and Gordon Bell Award Nomination
The Print ‘n Fly Guide to SC14 New Orleans is now available for download.
As a supplement to the guide, we also offer this Sci-Fi Original story by Rich Brueckner: Angels of Silence. We hope you can enjoy it on your flight to New Orleans.