The Winners of the Data Mover Challenge 2023 were announced at the SupercomputingAsia 2024 (SCA24) conference

Organised by the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore, the International Data Mover Challenge (DMC) 2023 brought together experts from around the world to test their software and solutions for transferring huge amounts of research data. Representatives from the winning team were invited to SCA24 to present their winning solution at the conference. Find out more here.

Singapore’s Top Scientists Honoured at the President’s Science and Technology Award Ceremony

The 2023 President’s Science and Technology Awards (PSTA) celebrated top talent in Singapore’s material science and space technologies fields earlier this evening. The PSTA is the highest honour conferred upon research scientists and engineers in Singapore whose work has resulted in significant scientific, technological, or economic benefits for the country. The winners received their awards from President Tharman Shanmugaratnam at the Istana. The President’s Science and Technology Medal was awarded to NSCC Steering Committee Chairman Mr Quek Gim Pew for his outstanding contributions in shaping Singapore’s Research, Innovation, and Enterprise (RIE) ecosystem. Find out more in the Media Release.

High-Performance Computing Drives Singapore’s Digital Growth

EU-ASEAN-Japan Symposium announces High-Performance Computing School resumption

Finland and Singapore’s National Quantum Office ink MoU to strengthen quantum technology research cooperation

To cool the world’s data centres

Organisations need to make important, timely and informed decisions to stay competitive and relevant. Businesses will increasingly leverage shared IT operations in data centres that will help store, process and disseminate critical and proprietary digital assets with powerful computing resources. Read more about how KoolLogix’s patented patented energy-efficient cooling system for data centres reduces energy consumption by up to 50 per cent here.

NTU spin-off firm to help transform data centres into energy-efficient set-ups

Scientists in Singapore are using artificial intelligence (AI) to help transform typically energy-sapping data centres into energy-efficient ones.. Following successful trials, the team from Red Dot Analytics, a spin-off company from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), is now looking to commercialise the technology. Collaborating with organisations such as e-commerce and technology giant Alibaba and national research infrastructure National Supercomputing Centre Singapore, the Red Dot Analytics’ team built virtual prototypes of their technologies before testing and verifying them in their data centres.

Energy guzzlers: Data centers and the question of sustainability

Data centers are considered “the world’s greatest energy guzzlers” and are estimated to consume a tenth of global energy production. Rapid technological innovation has led to greater energy consumption and, consequently, higher greenhouse gas emissions that are having visible and devastating impacts on the environment. Red Dot Analytics (RDA), a deep-tech company providing industrial AI software, has taken the pioneering AI and “cognitive digital twin” research by NTU and has digitally modelled NSCC’s entire operation to identify inefficiencies in its hot and cold air-mixing framework that led to a poor power usage effectiveness rating. The discovery – and the efforts to correct it – resulted in NSCC achieving energy cost savings of US$4,400 a month, as well as a 15% to 30% improvement in its cooling systems efficiencies. Find out more in this News Article.

HPC-AI Advisory Council and ISC Group Announce Winners of 10th Annual ISC Student Cluster Competition

The HPC-AI Advisory Council (HPCAIAC) in collaboration with the ISC Group revealed the top performers in the 10^th annual ISC Student Cluster Competition. Remaining an all remote competition for a second year, the annual global competition culminated with an award ceremony broadcast as part of the virtual ISC High Performance conference proceedings this week. Aligned with the ISC High Performance conference digital-delivery, organizers rebooted the second year of the all remote SCC, garnering added support from Canada’s University of Toronto, SciNet Supercomputing Centre with the ongoing support of the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore. The prestigious institutions provided generous allocations of supercomputer system time to the teams on their highly utilized and in-demand production resources. Find out more in the Press Release.

Singapore developing its own ‘crystal ball’ for better climate projections

The effects of planetary warming are clear. Global temperatures and sea levels are rising, certain extreme weather events could intensify, and rainfall patterns could become more erratic. But at a finer resolution, many questions remain about how these changes would manifest in Singapore and South-east Asia. For instance, how fast would sea levels rise around the city-state, and how high could the waters go? If rainfall patterns change, would the country experience more droughts or flash floods? These are questions that scientists at the Centre for Climate Research Singapore (CCRS) – a division under the National Environment Agency’s Meteorological Service Singapore – are looking into. CCRS is working with the National Supercomputing Centre to downscale these models to produce grid cells spanning from about 2km to 8km. Find out more about their work in this News Article.

SCAsia 21 Kicks-off Student Team Entries for HPCAIAC and NSCC Singapore’s 4th Annual APAC HPC-AI Competition

The HPC-AI Advisory Council (HPCAIAC) and National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore today announced the immediate opening and acceptance of student team proposals for entry consideration in the jointly organized and hosted 2021 APAC HPC-AI Competition. Focused on showcasing the region’s top technical institutions and colleges, submissions for the 4th annual competition are being accepted through the end of April and open to teams across APAC comprised of currently enrolled undergraduate, upper level and advanced degree students skilled in state-of-the-art high performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI).

Singapore urged to aim to be R&D hub for alternative energy

To ensure Singapore thrives in a future affected by climate change, it should establish itself as a research and development (R&D) hub for alternative energy sources. This could be done through building up the talent pool and investing in research infrastructure such as supercomputers. Alternative energy researchers can leverage the use of supercomputers to identify scalable solutions. To achieve this, deeper collaboration between alternative energy scientists, and the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) is desired. The bridge between the energy and computing could be established by institutionalising partnerships between corporations, universities, and NSCC. These were among the new key recommendations in a revised position paper on climate change by Young PAP, the youth wing of the People’s Action Party (PAP). Read more about the paper in The Straits Times.

Simulation shows how cough droplets spread in tropical climate

A*STAR researchers in Singapore have developed a simulation which more accurately models the spread of droplets when a person with Covid-19 coughs in Singapore’s tropical environment. Working closely with the National Supercomputing Centre, they fed a combination of physics and mathematical equations, based on prior studies on the coronavirus, into a supercomputer to produce their simulation. Read more about the story in the 09 November 2020 edition of The Straits Times.

Singapore Polytechnic is first local polytechnic to sign MoU with NSCC for full access to supercomputers

Singapore Polytechnic (SP) and Transwarp, with the support of the Ministry of Education, AI Singapore (AISG) and National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC), launched the first-of-its-kind local AI competition – the inaugural Singapore edition of the virtual Collegial Artificial Intelligence Innovation Competition (CAIIC) 2020. The competition enables youths from the junior colleges, Institute of Technical Education (ITE), polytechnics, universities and the public in Singapore to identify and develop innovative AI solutions. Singapore Polytechnic also announced a new partnership with NSCC to enable Singapore Polytechnic’s staff and students to develop AI innovations for local industries. Read more about the SP-NSCC MoU and the competition in the Media Release.

Supercomputers to Give ITE a Boost in its Applied Artificial Intelligence Projects

ITE will leverage the power of high performance computing (HPC) for use in applied AI projects, pedagogy, workshops and training, and HPC-related student competitions in a new collaboration with NSCC. An MOU was signed between ITE and NSCC in a virtual ceremony on 2 October 2020. “Apart from providing local researchers with easy access to national supercomputing resources and capabilities to create new smart nation innovations, it is equally important to get our youth started early on HPC to nurture the next generation of data scientists, genomics researchers, advanced manufacturing technologists and AI scientists,” said Associate Professor Tan Tin Wee, Chief Executive of NSCC. Read more in the Media Release.

HPC-AI Advisory Council and ISC Group Announce Winners of the 9th Annual Student Cluster Competition

The HPC-AI Advisory Council (HPCAIAC) in collaboration with the ISC Group revealed the teams topping the 2020 leaderboard for the ninth annual ISC-HPCAIAC Student Cluster Competition (SCC). As a consequence of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the ISC High Performance conference organizers quickly reorganized the event into an “all virtual” SCC in just a few short weeks. Competitors hailed from eleven different locations around the world, with a total of eighty-two students taking part in the 2020 competition. The National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore provided HPC system resources that allowed the international teams to coordinate and demonstrate their proposed solutions to complex real-world scenarios in a completely virtual setting.

Record Number of Student Teams to Participate in the APAC HPC and AI Competition

The HPC-AI Advisory Council (HPCAIAC) in collaboration with the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore today announced the teams competing in the co-organized, third annual APAC HPC-AI Competition supporting ongoing student development and mastery in high performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) disciplines. Comprised of undergraduate and graduate competitors from some of Asia Pacific’s leading academic institutions, thirty teams complete the 2020 roster and will compete across the region in an all remote contest.

ISC 2020’s Student Cluster Competition Winners Announced

Students from China’s University of Science and Technology (USTC) won first place in this year’s annual Student Cluster Competition at the ISC 2020 Digital conference. The USTC team, comprised of six members, beat out 14 other student teams from 11 countries to win the prestigious award. The team from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) was presented with the competition’s inaugural Honorable Mention award. This year’s competition, which was held fully online and made possible using the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore’s HPC resources, focused on the global fight against Covid-19 by including applications that address education and applied learning towards accelerating bioscience research and discovery. The teams, totaling 80 students, were tasked to test several applications used by scientists and researchers for finding a cure for the pandemic.

Making the Team South Africa: Defending the Crown

82 university students from 11 countries are working feverishly on a cluster located at the National Supercomputing Centre of Singapore to try to win the ISC 2020 Student Cluster Competition golden crown. One of these teams is from the Centre for High Performance Computing located in South Africa. This is their seventh appearance in the ISC cluster wars and they’ve built up an incredible record of four gold medals, two silver medals and a bronze. Read News Article.

BSC and FIB-UPC Team Participates Virtually in the ISC Student Cluster Competition 2020

The team “Not Only FLOPs“, made up of six students from the Facultat d’Informàtica de Barcelona (FIB-UPC) and guided by six advisors from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), are participating in a new edition of the Student Cluster Competition at the ISC20 Conference. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the ISC20 conference has been transformed into a virtual event, and the HPC Advisory Council, organizing the Student Cluster Competition, decided to keep the competition allowing all teams to race using the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) cluster in Singapore as a playground. Read News Article.

HPC-AI Advisory Council and ISC Group Continues Annual Student Cluster Competition as an Online Event

The HPC-AI Advisory Council (HPCAIAC), a for community benefit organization promoting high performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) education, along with the ISC Group, organizers of Europe’s premier HPC forum, ISC High Performance (ISC 2020), today announced that the 2020 ISC-HPCAIAC Student Cluster Competition (SCC), regularly scheduled as a three-day live event during the ISC conference, will be held as an online competition. Through the generous support of the National Supercomputing Center (NSCC) Singapore, 14 student teams from around the world will utilize the supercomputing platforms at NSCC to remotely configure, code and benchmark a series of HPC and AI applications. Read more in the Media Release.

IT And telecom are at forefront in battle against coronavirus

The almost uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 or coronavirus disease 2019 has unnerved the entire mankind. The first step to control the disease is to understand the virus itself. Since molecular modelling of proteins, genomics or training of Artificial Intelligence is very computationally intensive, various companies and institutions are using or offering their supercomputing powers e.g. IBM’ Summit, University of Texas’ Frontera, NASA’s High-End Computing Capability Portfolio, National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore etc. This has raised the hope that a vaccine may be available in a year’s time as many have already entered trials. Read News Article.

HPC-AI Advisory Council and National Supercomputing Centre Singapore Expand 3rd APAC HPC-AI Competition to Address COVID-19

The HPC-AI Advisory Council (HPCAIAC) and the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore announced today that they have joined the global fight against COVID-19 by expanding the 2020 APAC HPC-AI competition to address education and applied learning towards accelerating bioscience research and discovery. As part of the updated competition, student teams are now tasked to research, find and choose an HPC or AI application that can potentially be used as part of the global fight against COVID-19. Teams must demonstrate testing and benchmarking of the application, as well as explain how this application can best be accelerated. Read more in the Media Release.

HPC-AI Advisory Council and NSCC Announce 3rd APAC HPC-AI Competition

The HPC-AI Advisory Council (HPCAIAC) and the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore announced the launch of the 2020 APAC HPC-AI Competition. Continuing the success of the previous competitions, the 3^rd Annual 2020 APAC HPC-AI competition expects to host multiple teams from across the APAC region. The student teams will compete against international teams to produce solutions and applications in the High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) domains. Read more in the Media Release.

Singapore’s National Supercomputing Resources Joins the Fight Against COVID-19

Local COVID-19 related research projects will be given special fast-tracked access to supercomputing resources at the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore to speed up research on the virus.This could include deeper studies about the virus genome and potential new therapies or vaccines. Read more about the Special COVID-19 Call for Projects in the NSCC Media Release.

Find out more about the NSCC Special Call for COVID-19 Projects.

Singapore scientists join international team to create ultrahigh-resolution brain map

A group of Singapore scientists is partnering an international team to embark on creating an ultra-high-resolution 3D comprehensive map of the human brain. They signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Shaw Foundation Alumni House Auditorium. The collaboration, Synchrotron for Neuroscience – Asia Pacific Strategic Enterprise (SYNAPSE), will link the synchrotron facilities in Asia Pacific and is expected to involve more than 1,000 researchers. The SYNAPSE partners also signed a second MOU to implement a High-Performance Computing network for such data. Singapore, which will leverage the petascale supercomputing resources at the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC), is set to be the data hub of SYNAPSE.

Singapore unveils new strategy aimed at developing AI ecosystem

Singapore will embark on its plan to develop and use artificial intelligence (AI) by implementing projects in key high-value sectors and building a holistic AI ecosystem, said Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat on Wednesday. He emphasised the importance of AI in Singapore’s Smart Nation vision; in creating social and economic value for the country through raising productivity and the quality of public goods such as transport, education and healthcare. Singapore’s National AI Strategy (NAIS) will see over S$500 million committed to funding activities related to AI under the Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2020 Plan, in hopes of furthering AI capabilities in these fields. Read News Article.

Singapore to invest more in digital, food tech and cell therapy R&D

Following the mid-term review of the five-year Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2020 (RIE2020) plan, Singapore will be investing more in research and development (R&D) in the three areas of digital technology, cell therapy manufacturing and sustainable urban food production, including cultured meat and microbial proteins. This was announced by National Research Foundation (NRF) chairman and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat at the end of the 11th Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council Meeting on Wednesday. Read News Article.

$200 million boost to further develop the field of supercomputing in Singapore

Singapore’s National Research Foundation (NRF) will pump in S$200m to upgrade the country’s supercomputing infrastructure in a bid to provide research institutions and universities with wider access to high-performance computing capabilities. Speaking at the opening of Supercomputing Asia 2019 (SCA19)on 12 March, Singapore finance minister Heng Swee Keat said the investment, which is part of the S$19bn Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2020 plan, will provide 15 to 20 petaflops of high-end computing performance – equivalent to the computing power of a million laptops.