Supercomputing champions Mokoena Katleho
Wits University students walked away with bragging rights after emerging tops in national student cluster supercomputing competition held during the annual Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) conference in Pretoria last week.
The students were part of 10 teams, comprising four undergraduate students each from universities across the country, who battled it out to demonstrate their cluster building and high performance computing skills.
The winning team will compete next year with other 11 teams from countries such as China, Singapore, Thailand, Poland and Germany, among others.
In a real-time challenge, the students build small high-performance computing clusters on the exhibition floor, using hardware provided by CHPC and its industrial partners, and race to demonstrate the best performance across a series of benchmarks and applications.
The CHPC is one of three primary pillars of the national cyber infrastructure intervention initiated by the department of science and technology (DST) and managed by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
High school learners participated in this year’s CHPC event, interacting with university students who competed in the supercomputing competition. They were encouraged to pursue careers in computer science.
Speaking at the competition, the DST’s director general Dr Phil Mjwara said that the department was committed to investing in science, engineering and innovation, including the establishment and support of institutes such as the CHPC.
He said this kind of investment ensures that South Africa is prepared to meet the demands of the Fouth Industrial Revolution.
“This kind of government assistance fosters the creation and dissemination of knowledge of innovation and has a strong influence on the long-term competitiveness of the country,” said Mjwara.
“There’s no doubt that a country’s information, communications and technology (ICT) sector is vital to its long-term prosperity. The globally competitive ICT structure creates a sustainable ecosystem and enables researchers and scientists to globally compete,” he said.
“It is interesting that high-performance computing is gaining currency in non-traditional market applications, largely due to its convergence with cloud computing, and the emergence of artificial intelligence and strengthening of machine learning in broader applications,” added Mjwara.
He said with the Fouth Industrial Revolution upon us, industries will need to use data analytics for accurate and more advanced decision-making. Their ability to meet challenges and stay competitive will depend on the availability of skilled personnel to analyse large volumes of complex data; and access to high-end computing infrastructure so that they can process data quickly, have adequate data storage, and access tools for data security and exploration.
“We have seen many countries preparing to meet these challenges, and developing strategies to ensure that the new industrial revolution does not leave them behind. South Africa has invested heavily in cyberinfrastructure, and will use these facilities to prepare the country for the future,” he said.
“Our investment in high-performance computing infrastructure has been ramped up significantly over the past 10 years, as evidenced by our Leadership Machine Lengau, which was installed in 2016 and attained computing capacity of 1.029 PetaFLOPS,” he said further.
“How powerful or fast is a petaflop machine? Currently the fastest supercomputer in the world, as ranked by the Top500 list, is the K Computer built by Fujitsu in Japan — a 10.51 petaflops (10 510 000 000 000 000 flops) machine. To get an idea how fast is petaflop machine, we would need 61 million iPad 2s to match the processing power of the K Computer — that makes a pile of iPad 2 units about 540km high, or the equivalent of almost 1 700 Eiffel Towers,” he said.
The CHPC’s Lengau supercomputer is currently number 165 on the global TOP500 list of supercomputers, and can perform quadrillion (or 10 to the power 15) instructions per second. This means that simulations of rechargeable batteries that used to take 11 days are now reduced to less than 18 hours.
“These are performances we need to propel our initiatives for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, for the country to remain competitive,” said Mjwara.
Last year, South Africa’s student cluster team came second and is hoping to bring home another medal next year.
CHPC director Dr Happy Sithole is confident that the South African team will make the nation proud. “We are very proud of what we have managed to achieve as country. Last year our team managed to compete with the best teams and we won. We believe that this team will make us proud.”
He said the objective was to create awareness of High Performance Computing and the great impact it has on the country.
South Africa’s supercomputing prowess on the continent and internationally resulted from Government’s huge investments in cyber-infrastructure.
“Students receive a unique opportunity to learn, experience and demonstrate how high performance computing influences our world and day-to-day learning.”
The winning team includes:
Rosendorff Meir (Wits)
Bruton Joshua (Wits)
Paupamah Kimessha (Wits)
Mokoena Katleho (Wits)
Sithole Njabulo (University of Limpopo)
Michlo Nathan (Wits)
Giga Biters and Evans Sharon (Wits)
Gekko Bulbulia Zubair (Wits)