Jack Dongarra, chairman of the ASC (World University Supercomputer Competition) expert committee, Turing Award winner, and distinguished professor at the University of Tennessee, once said that the ASC supercomputer competition has formed a unique culture, and the former team members have grown into today's coaches, realizing the passing on of the torch of supercomputing power. Fu Zhenxin, the current instructor of the Peking University supercomputing team, is one of the representatives. A few days ago, at the 2024 ASC kick-off meeting, Fu Zhenxin spoke as a representative of the participating teams, telling his perception and experience of the ASC supercomputing competition.
Fu Zhenxin, instructor of the Peking University supercomputing team, spoke at the 2024 ASC kick-off meeting.
As early as his undergraduate years, Fu Zhenxin participated in supercomputing competitions, and later had the honor to continue to guide the Peking University supercomputing team as a graduate student, and it was this rich and interesting experience that made him fall in love with supercomputing. When he graduated, Fu Zhenxin chose to stay at Peking University to work in the high-performance computing platform.
Exercising a variety of abilities, the charm of the supercomputing competition is far more than the competition itself.
Fu Zhenxin's research direction during his graduate studies was natural language processing, and the supercomputing competition taught him about parallel computing, which became his passion. "This is one of the reasons why I encourage students to participate in supercomputing competitions, hoping that students will be exposed to more fields and discover their hobbies. Another important reason is that I believe that the charm of supercomputing competitions goes far beyond the questions themselves, and can help college students develop a variety of abilities. Fu Zhenxin said.
Fu Zhenxin believes that the supercomputing competition can fill some gaps in computer education. Computer education sometimes ignores the development of basic skills, such as using search engines efficiently and learning new areas quickly. The supercomputing competition is a good way to exercise students' computer-related skills.
In addition, the focus of learning is on the unity of knowledge and action. The supercomputing competition gives college students a motivation to learn new technologies, new knowledge, and new fields, and then test various skills that have been exercised before through the optimization of competition questions and complex scenarios. Fu Zhenxin explained that in the fierce on-site competition, students will face a high-pressure environment, as well as unexpected problems from time to time, need to find a reasonable and efficient solution within the specified time, and apply their innovative ideas to hands-on practice, through many attempts, students can deeply understand which directions are feasible, which directions need to be adjusted, and exercise their own analysis and judgment skills.
Fu Zhenxin said that the ASC competition is a team competition, through which students can learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses in the team, and can better understand the meaning of the team and experience how to give full play to the maximum value of a team. "I also really enjoy the process of discussing problems with my classmates, which is not only a way to exercise my thinking, but also a very effective way to learn. ”
Popularize supercomputing and stimulate students' interest in supercomputing.
In addition to the supercomputing competition, Fu Zhenxin also led the students to do a lot of work to popularize supercomputing. For example, the Peking University High Performance Computing Comprehensive Ability Competition is organized to stimulate students' interest in the field of high-performance computing and promote them to study their own professional fields. Cooperate with other universities to write high-quality HPC documents, introduce supercomputing as a whole, publicize supercomputing from the perspective of supercomputing competitions, and help more people get started with supercomputing.
The Peking University supercomputing team won the championship of the 10th ASC Supercomputing Competition.
In recent years, the results of the Peking University supercomputing team have been getting better and better, especially in the 10th ASC competition last year. "I personally feel that in the context of the rapid development of the supercomputing field, more and more students at Peking University have begun to pay attention to supercomputing and supercomputing competitions, and have generated more recognition and enthusiasm for the challenging and fun competition of ASC. Fu Zhenxin said with a little pride.
Supercomputing is a high-threshold, multidisciplinary discipline, which needs to be cultivated by more young people to love and explore. "Just like the ASC competition, especially the offline finals, it is a very complex project that requires multi-party coordination and a lot of computing resources. Fu Zhenxin said that he hopes to have more platforms like the ASC competition, so that more young people can learn knowledge, hone their skills, and constantly challenge themselves and broaden their horizons through competitions. (Xiao Chunfang).
*: Bright.com.