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---
title: "2018 OpenPOWER/CAPI and OpenCAPI Heterogeneous Computing Design Contest - Build Your Own Super Processor"
date: "2018-08-01"
categories:
- "press-releases"
- "blogs"
tags:
- "featured"
---
Organized by IBM China, IPS (Inspur Power Commercial Systems), The OpenPOWER Foundation, the OpenCAPI Consortium and Fudan University Microelectronics College, 2018 CAPI/OpenCAPI heterogeneous computing design contest begins July 6th.
The objective of the contest is to encourage universities and scientific research institutions to understand the advanced technology of FPGA heterogeneous computing on the OpenPOWER system and prepare applications for technological innovation. The participants will have the opportunity to cooperate with members of the OpenPOWER Foundation, the OpenCAPI Consortium to develop  prototypes on a OpenPOWER platform while receiving technical guidance from from sponsor companies experts.
The contest is sponsored by OpenPOWER Foundation members Shenzhen Semptian data Limited., Mellanox Technologies, Nallatech (a Molex company) and Xilinx, Inc,
## Background
Heterogeneous Computing is a system that uses more than one processor. This multi-core system not only enhances the performance of the processor core, but also incorporates specialized processing capabilities, such as GPU or FPGA, to work on specific tasks.
In recent years, as the silicon chip approaches physical and economic cost limits, Moore's law is dead.  The rapid development of the Internet, the explosive growth of information and the popularization of AI technology have highly increased the demand for computing power. Heterogeneous computing, the focus is not only limited to the improvement of CPU performance, but to break the bottleneck of data transmission between CPU and peripherals, and to allow more hardware devices to participate in computing, such as using dedicated hardware to be responsible for intensive computing or peripherals management, which can significantly improve the performance of the whole system. There is no doubt that heterogeneous computing is the main direction of improving computing power.
Participants in the OpenCAPI heterogeneous computing design competition can achieve insight by utilizing and optimizing the most advanced technology available through OpenPOWER architecture. This competition will provide an opportunity to create breakthrough technologies and for enterprise and research workloads. 
## Contest Rules
The contest will begin on July 6th with submissions due by Nov. 23rd.   The winner will be announced publically at the OpenPOWER China Summit 2018 in December in Beijing.  Announcement date yet to be determined 
In preliminaries, participants will submit a solution proposal of a FPGA accelerator based on CAPI/OpenCAPI technology on OpenPOWER systems. The accelerator can serve any workload that requires high computing power or big data transaction bandwidth.  Ten winners of preliminaries will be selected and awarded funds to support them moving on to the final.
In final, participants will develop a prototype of their solution proposed in real development environment. Sponsors will provide them with OpenPOWER systems + CAPI/OpenCAPI enabled FPGA cards as well as technical expects that will provide coding and debugging skills for the CAPI development framework.
## Timeline
<table><tbody><tr><td width="88">Schedule</td><td width="176">Time</td><td width="321">Content</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3" width="88">Preliminary</td><td width="176">7/6-8/15</td><td width="321">Enroll and submit proposal</td></tr><tr><td width="176">8/16-8/26</td><td width="321">Expert Review</td></tr><tr><td width="176">8/27</td><td width="321">Announce Top 10 for Final</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3" width="88">Final</td><td width="176">8/27-11/23</td><td width="321">Prototype development and submission for final</td></tr><tr><td width="176">11/24-11/29</td><td width="321">Expert Review</td></tr><tr><td width="176">(TBD)</td><td width="321">Final Thesis Oral Defense and Award Ceremony</td></tr></tbody></table>
## Audiences and Enroll
College students from China universities and research institutes, who are interested in the CAPI/OpenCAPI technology are welcome to join.  They are also welcome to join the OpenPOWER Foundation at the Associate or Academic Level for free ([https://openpowerfoundation.org/membership/levels/](https://openpowerfoundation.org/membership/levels/))
Click [More information](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MjM5MDk3Mjk0MQ==&mid=509982703&idx=1&sn=48ee68fbdd54b1437e78a1d9c2285864&chksm=3d2dba8d0a5a339baf271ed5cedf51d8f29c097e488244623bac2d6f61121c3292fc45de56a4&scene=18&key=1d3ba184c3454c150135581fb2c6d4fd1a55a420799f8) to get to know more of the contest.
Click [Enroll](http://dsgapp.cn.edst.ibm.com/bps/OpenCAPI/index.html?lectureId=1&project_id=2) for enrollment
## Messages from Organizers and Sponsors
<table><tbody><tr><td width="189"><a href="https://openpowerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Wu.tif"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5635" src="images/Wu.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-5636" src="images/Wu-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150"></a><div></div>Waiming Wu,<div></div>General Manager,<div></div>IBM OpenPOWER China</td><td width="460">With the ever increasing demand for computing power today, OpenPOWER based on IBM POWER processor and Linux technology has attracted more and more attention from customers, developers and business partners. OpenPOWER systems, with its excellent computing and processing capabilities are ideal for AI, big data and cloud platforms. The OpenCAPI technology used in OpenPOWER systems support heterogeneous computing such that innovation in accelerators could be quickly integrated with POWER processor to provide the next level of computing performance. The new concept of heterogeneous computing based on collaboration between CPU and accelerators heralds a new computing era.<div></div>We are pleased to see the announcement and roll out of "The OpenCAPI + OpenPOWER Heterogeneous Computing Contest" for universities and research institutions. The OpenPOWER Foundation &amp; OpenCAPI Consortium, Fudan University and many members of OpenPOWER actively support this activity. This is the best demonstration of the support from academic and corporate community in technological innovation. In IBM we will also do our best to co-organize this event and to contribute developing talents and innovative solutions.<div></div>We are also grateful to the technical experts at IBM China System Lab. Under this Contest, they will share the leading technology to the competing teams through in-depth technology seminars, carefully prepared technical documents and the upcoming one-to-one expert support, and of course great technical mentorship.</td></tr><tr><td width="189"><a href="https://openpowerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Hugh.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-5637" src="images/Hugh-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150"></a><div></div>Hugh Blemings<div></div>Executive Director<div></div>OpenPOWER Foundation<div></div>&nbsp;</td><td width="460">At the OpenPOWER Foundation we're delighted to see our members like Mellanox, Nallatech, Semptian, Xilinx and of course IBM working together in the “OpenCAPI + OpenPOWER Contest”.&nbsp;CAPI/OpenCAPI is a key part of the great Open system that OpenPOWER represents and a leading high speed interconnect for Accelerators and Interconnects alike. Our Members, working with some great universities and research institutions in China will provide both an opportunity for people to learn about CAPI/OpenCAPI and to see solutions to real world problems solved faster using innovative OpenPOWER hardware and software. We're looking forward to seeing what innovative ideas the contestants come up with and, of course, congratulating the winners at the OpenPOWER Summit in Beijing in December.&nbsp; We wish all involved the very best!&nbsp;</td></tr><tr><td width="189"><a href="https://openpowerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Jiang.png"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-5638" src="images/Jiang.png" alt="" width="63" height="96"></a><div></div>Yujing Jiang,<div></div>Product and Marketing Director,<div></div>Inspur Power Commercial Systems Co., Ltd<div></div>&nbsp;<div></div>&nbsp;</td><td width="460">Inspur Power Commercial Systems Co., Ltd. is a platinum member of the OpenPOWER Foundation, committed to co-build an open OpenPOWER ecosystem, developing servers based on open Power technology, improving server ecosystems, building a sustainable server business and providing users with advanced, differentiated and diverse computing platforms and solutions. Inspur Power Systems insist on openness and integration for continuous development of heterogeneous computing architecture based on CAPI. CAPI heterogeneous computing breaks the computing walls, enhances massive parallel data processi