Overview
Known for their enormous speed, memory, storage capacity and number crunching capabilities, IBM POWER-based parallel supercomputers have been used by universities, government agencies, research organizations and commercial enterprises to solve some of the most complex problems in physics, engineering, biology, geology and the environment.
Scientists and engineers use IBM supercomputers based on the POWER processor to study the human genome, develop new vaccines, forecast the weather, study marine life, predict earthquakes, create simulations for building airplanes, develop new materials, look into the future of global warming, simulate auto crash tests, discover the origins of the universe and many other extraordinary, critical applications.
IBM Research, for example, is currently building BlueGene/L, a massively parallel supercomputer that is expected to be the fastest in the world when completed next year.
The Contest
At the 2005 World Finals of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, IBM will launch a new Power Parallel Programming Challenge that will test the students’ ability to program on a POWER-based parallel system. With much of the leading work in programming today dedicated to developing applications that will run on parallel supercomputers, this contest will give young programmers exposure to advanced programming environments.
Contestant teams will be asked to create a parallel application and run it on an IBM POWER-based platform. The competition will be judged on the scalability of the students’ solution and its performance over a range of problem sizes. It will be run on an IBM platform with at least several hundred processors.
The program will be judged on the correctness of results and how quickly it solves problems of increasing size. Contestants will be provided with training, MPI (Message-Passing Interface) educational material, and an example of functioning MPI applications, prior to the Challenge, at the 2005 Finals.
“At IBM we are seeing that the parallel computing approach solves many of the most critical scientific and engineering problems,” said William Pulleyblank, director of exploratory server systems, IBM research. “The Power Parallel Programming Challenge will give young programmers exposure to this important type of programming, exposing them to new and emerging technology.”
Questions about the POWER Parallel Programming Challenge can be emailed to casinfo@ca.ibm.com.
About IBM’s POWER architecture
IBM's POWER architecture offers customers open, innovative technology solutions through either the AIX 5L, OS/400 or Linux operating systems that complement the growing demand for 64-bit applications. In addition to being at the core of the powerful, industry leading IBM eServer systems, the POWER microprocessor technology can be found in Nintendo game consoles, Apple computers, and some of the world's most powerful supercomputers and storage systems.
IBM’s power architecture is the basis for the Blue Gene supercomputer research project, which is dedicated to exploring a new family of supercomputer optimized for bandwidth, scalability and the ability to handle large amounts of data while consuming a fraction of the power and floor space required by today’s fastest systems.
Related links:
ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest
Java Challenge
IBM Research Deep Computing Institute
IBM BlueGene Supercomputer Project