The ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge Finals were held at Shanghai University in mid April 2024. The supercomputing team of Macau University of Science and Technology (M.U.S.T.) became the first team in Macau advanced to the Finals of this competition and won the first prize.

In this year's ASC24 Preliminary Round, the MUST team consisted of three bachelor students from Faculty of Innovation Engineering-School of Computer Science and Engineering (FIE-SCSE), Ren Zhengfei (Team leader), Qin Junshuo (Team technical member), and Hou Geyang (Team support member), and their tutor Associate Professor Cheang Chak Fong. For the first time participating in the ASC competition, although the team members faced heavy pressure and challenges, they all demonstrated excellent learning and practical abilities in application analysis, performance optimization and parallel strategy design, making the team stand out from more than 300 participating teams in the preliminaries around the world. The team stood out and successfully advanced to the finals. On February 5, they received an invitation letter to the finals and became the first university team in Macau to enter the ASC Finals.

The ASC24 finals topics include a series of scientific and applied engineering problems such as Mars atmosphere simulation, oil production seepage numerical simulation, large language model inference optimization, and seismic wave simulation. In the finals, the supercomputing team of M.U.S.T. competed with teams from 24 top universities around the world. They launched a fierce competition and won the first prize based on the results they submitted. In addition, during the presentation session on the last day of the finals, two students, Ren Zhengfei and Qin Junshuo, representatives of M.U.S.T. team, were responsible for the final report.

Team members (from left: Ren Zhengfei, Qin Junshuo, Fei Caixuan) were awarded the first prize

M.U.S.T. Team in ASC24 Competition

Group photo of ASC24 participating teams

Figure 4. First Prize Certificate

The ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge is initiated and organized by universities in China and Asia, and has received active response and support from supercomputing scholars and organizations in the United States, Europe and other countries. The competition committee is composed of top scholars in China and abroad, including Turing Award winner Jack Dongarra, and senior professionals from institutions. It aims to promote the exchange and training of young talents in high-performance computing between countries and regions, improve the level of supercomputing application level, and research and development capabilities, give full play to its technological driving force, and promote technological and industrial innovation. So far, the ASC has been held for the 11th time, attracting tens of thousands of college students from six continents around the world to sign up for the competition. It is the largest supercomputing competition for college students in the world. Together with the American SC and the German ISC, it is also one of the three major supercomputing competitions in the world.

ASC official website: http://www.asc-events.org.