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South African students excel at global tech event in Texas

Posted on 2024-04-032024-04-03 by Rudolph Ruds

Seven students from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) took first prize in the Student Cluster Competition (SCC) and won a sponsored trip to the Dell High Performance Computing and AI lab in Texas.

The SCC is organised by the Centre for High-Performance Computing (CHPC), which is supported by the Department of Science and Innovation, and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). It challenges undergraduate students to design, build, and manage mini-supercomputers for real-world scientific tasks.

The prize included training at Dell Labs and a chance to represent South Africa at the International Super Computing (ISC) Student Cluster Competition in Hamburg, Germany from 12 to 16 May 2024.

“The South African government’s support of international cyber infrastructure excellence is paying off,” stated Coach Nyameko Lisa, reflecting on their experience at the Texas Advanced Computing Centre (TACC). “The CHPC must continue to leverage partnerships and collaboration so we can use technology to solve our challenges locally and across the continent.”

During their visit to TACC, the team delved into modern HPC systems crucial for AI workflows worldwide. The immersive experience included visits to institutions like NASA and the University of Houston, providing invaluable exposure to bleeding-edge technology.

Ryan Rautenbach, advisory systems engineer for Dell Technologies South Africa, emphasises HPC’s power in driving AI and analytics: “As it becomes more accessible, HPC is enabling important discoveries and solving some of the most important challenges of our time.”

Photo: Students had to build mini-supercomputers for real-world scientific tasks.

Source: ITWeb

Registration open for OpenHPC 2.x training

Posted on 2024-02-27 by Rudolph Ruds

The CHPC’s HPC Ecosystems Project is delivering the second virtual hands-on training lab for OpenHPC 2.x from 16 February to 4 March 2024.

The virtual lab is open to HPC practitioners and anyone who is HPC-curious. The instructions are delivered asynchronously online and will guide participants to deploy a 3-node OpenHPC 2.x cluster with the deployment performed on your personal computer using Virtual Box.

Upon the conclusion of the training, participants may opt to keep the virtual 3-node cluster on their system to facilitate future learning and training. All instructions are available for self-paced learning and live support will be offered through a virtual classroom environment. The entire virtual lab is expected to require no more than 15 to 20 hours of hands-on time to complete.

More information and registration forms are available here: https://events.chpc.ac.za/e/OPENHPC2-lab08

CHPC Student Cluster Competition students win big with Dell

Posted on 2024-02-01 by Rudolph Ruds

It was an auspicious occasion in Midrand this recently, when Dell Computing rewarded the Student Cluster Competition winning team for the hard work they displayed at the CHPC’s National Conference in December 2023.

University of the Witwatersrand’s Reinhard Janse van Buren, Lily de Melo, Michell Nielson, and Mikyle Singh all received Dell Latitude 3540 laptops to the value of about R26,000 each. The four, together with Ithumeleng Khaka and Nhlonipho Shezi both from the University of the Free State, make the team that will represent South Africa at the internal round of the competition in Hamburg, Germany, in June this year.

Mohammed Amin, Dell Senior Vice President for META Region, travelled from Dubai to wish the students well in the competition. He further emphasised Dell’s commitment in supporting the Students Cluster Challenge.

“Dell shares in the CHPC vision of developing the next generation of high-performance computing talent for South Africa and the Student Cluster Competition is one such vehicle that prepares all the participating students for the more highly skilled jobs of the future,” said CHPC Director: Mervyn Christoffels.

Dell Computing is the technology partner of the CHPC Student Cluster Competition and provides the computer equipment the CHPC teams use in the competition. The generous support also includes an international trip to the Texas Advanced Computing Center and the Dell Labs in Texas, United States where the team of six will receive training and mentoring from some of the best technologists in the world. The team departs for Austin, Texas on 2 February.

Background

The CHPC, annually hosts a training program for undergraduate students currently enrolled in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics fields at South African universities, where they spend an intensive week during the winter vacation period receiving training in aspects of high-performance computing. Students are provided with remote computing resources, hosted at the Advanced Computer Engineering Laboratory of the CHPC in Cape Town.

From the candidates that participate in this first preliminary round, ten qualifying teams, comprising of four student participants and one mentor, then participate at the centre’s national conference, with high performance computer equipment sponsored and provided for by the centre’s various vendors and sponsors. The team that wins this secondary round is then sponsored and supported to travel to Austin, Texas, in the United States of America to train at the University of Texas’s, Texas Advanced Computing Center and the headquarters of Dell Labs. Following this they travel to the International Super Computing Conference to participate at the International Student Cluster Competition in Germany against competitors from all around the world.

BRICS GRAIN Working Group visits the CHPC

Posted on 2023-10-282023-10-28 by thuso607

The 5th Meeting of the BRICS Working Group on Research Infrastructure and Mega-science Projects visited the Centre for High Performance Computing this week. The meeting was organised by the National Research Foundation (NRF) with the support of the Department of Science and Innovation of South Africa. The group received a briefing on the work of the centre from CHPC Management and went on a guided tour of the facility, seeing: the data centre the cooling plant, the back-up power, the engineering lab to name a few. Areas of potential collaboration were also discussed with member states.

Administrative Note and draft agenda

Hardware and coding training – 2-6 October

Posted on 2023-10-052023-10-05 by thuso607

18 Chief Education Specialists from Eastern Cape, Free State and Mpumalanga responsible for: Science and Technology, Computer Applications Technology, Information Technology, Digital Technology, Coding and Robotics are gathered at the Centre for High Performance Computing in Cape Town, 2-6 October for the Computer Hardware and Coding Training. Each of these specialists is responsible for about 350 schools in their provinces and is responsible for the teaching and integration Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and to design the curriculum. They also wish to change perceptions of teachers in the use of ICT.

The training is part of the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) approved funding for the CHPC Computer Hardware and Coding Project for three years, from April 2022 to April 2024.