Do you have what it takes to improve the computing power of NASA’s Pleiades supercomputer without compromising accuracy? There’s a prize pool of $55,000 US Dollars waiting for you with NASA’s High Performance Fast Computing Challenge (HPFCC). NASA and its aeronautical innovators are launching this sponsored competition to reward the best and qualified super-programmers who can effectively manipulate NASA’s FUN3D design software and make it run 10 to 10,000 times faster!
NASA’s aviation research has three phases that runs simultaneously. One phase sees initial designs tested with computational fluid dynamics. The supercomputer runs numerical analysis and data structures to solve and analyse problems. NASA needs help in making these computations through the supercomputer done faster thus making this challenge a win-win solution for both aviation research and the undiscovered programmers out there that are waiting for such opportunity.
Check out the High Performance Fast Computing Challenge overview video below
“This is the ultimate ‘geek’ dream assignment. Helping NASA speed up its software to help advance our aviation research is a win-win for all.” – Doug Rohn, director of NASA’s Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program (TACP)
“This challenge is specifically targeted to speed up the CFD portion of our aerospace research. Some concepts are just so complex, it’s difficult for even the fastest supercomputers to analyze these models in real time. Achieving a speed-up in this software by orders of magnitude hones the edge we need to advance our technology to the next level!” – Michael Hetle, TACP program executive
“This challenge is specifically targeted to speed up the CFD portion of our aerospace research. Some concepts are just so complex, it’s difficult for even the fastest supercomputers to analyze these models in real time. Achieving a speed-up in this software by orders of magnitude hones the edge we need to advance our technology to the next level!” – Michael Hetle, TACP program executive
Competition Restrictions
Since the code is owned by the United States government, it has strict export restrictions requiring all challenge participants to be U.S. citizens over the age of 18.
How to Join
To be a part of NASA’s High Performance Fast Computing Challenge, visit https://herox.com/HPFCC Code submissions must be received by 5 p.m. EDT, June 29, and winners will be announced August 9, 2017.
Awarding and Prizes
HeroX Ideation Awards - up to $20,000
- First place: $10,000
- 2nd runner up: $5,000 each
Topcoder Architecture Awards - up to $35,000
- 1st Place: $15,000
- 2nd Place: $10,000
- Qualified Improvement Candidate Prize Pool: $10,000
HeroX Ideation Awards - up to $20,000
- First place: $10,000
- 2nd runner up: $5,000 each
Topcoder Architecture Awards - up to $35,000
- 1st Place: $15,000
- 2nd Place: $10,000
- Qualified Improvement Candidate Prize Pool: $10,000
The NASA Pleiades Supercomputer
The NASA Pleiades supercomputer runs the FUN3D software. Pleiades is a distributed-memory Silicon Graphics Inc. SGI ICE cluster connected with InfiniBand® in a dual-plane hypercube technology.
Pleiades Current System Architecture
- 161 racks (11,472 nodes)
- 7.25 Pflop/s peak cluster
- 4.09 Pflop/s LINPACK rating
- 132 Tflop/s HPCG rating
- Total CPU cores: 246,048
- Total memory: 938 TB
- 161 racks (11,472 nodes)
- 7.25 Pflop/s peak cluster
- 4.09 Pflop/s LINPACK rating
- 132 Tflop/s HPCG rating
- Total CPU cores: 246,048
- Total memory: 938 TB
