GRID WARS III Challenge Opens - WIN AN HP CLUSTER

The Grid Wars Challenge is a key featured event of the ClusterWorld Conference & Expo ( www.clusterworldexpo.com) where participating scientists submit CxC battle programs that will fight against each other for control of parallel processors. Grid Wars compares competing algorithms using methods such as dynamic programming, swarm intelligence, genetic algorithms and similar forms of artificial intelligence concepts. The winner's concept is published and receives the ClusterWorld Expo GRIDWARS III Award - this year an HP LC Series Cluster in a 14U rack.

In Grid Wars competing battle programs fight for control of parallel processors. The basis for Grid Wars is a two-dimensional grid of fully functional virtual parallel processors. Each processor is connected to its eight surrounding neighbors and all processors run concurrently. In the beginning, competitors' battle programs (written in the parallel programming language CxC) are each placed on one randomly-selected processor in the grid. Based on simple rules for winning "battles" for control of the processors, each battle program can spread across the grid onto an increasing number of processors. Each occupied processor runs the battle program in parallel. Every time a competing program takes over a new processor, its power increases. When encountering an enemy, battle programs fight against each other to finally take over the opponent's processor. The program that conquers all processors in the grid is the winner of the round. The challenge consists of an initial qualification contest, which is a series of many-against-many gladiator-type group battles, and a final championship tournament where qualified programs enter a series of one-on-one battles. Details about Rules, Technology and Guidelines can be found at www.gridwars.com.

Grand Prize: the Grid Wars III champion will receive an HP LC Series High Performance Cluster complete with CxC parallel computing software.

• One (1) DL380 control node with Intel Xeon 3.06 GHz Processor, one GB DDR memory, 72 GB disc drive
• Four (4) DL140 compute nodes, each with Intel Xeon 3.2 GHz processor, 1 GB DDR and 80 GB ATA disc drive
• 10/100 Ethernet with ProCurve 2650 switch
• Keyboard, mouse and monitor
• Choice of Linux or Windows OS
• Four (4) Licenses CxC Development Environment and CxC Compiler for Windows, four (4) CxC Run-time Environment licenses for Linux or Windows (depending on the cluster OS choice)

The downloadable Grid Wars Challenge Kit includes a 30-day trial license of the CxC Compiler that allows you to create your battle programs. After 30 days the CxC Compiler license expires and you can submit your warriors. If you would like to continue using the CxC Compiler you can purchase a full license at a special promotional price for a limited time. See the Grid Wars Web Site for details. ( www.gridwars.com). Each registered contestant may submit a maximum of ten CxC battle programs. A CxC battle program has to be in the form of the imported sub-program (warrior) as provided in examples in the Grid Wars Challenge Kit and must comply with the technical parameters specified in the Grid Wars Technology section.

The Grid Wars III championship event will be held LIVE on April 8th, 2004 from 10:15 - 11:15 a.m. PST at the premier conference for cluster computing, the ClusterWorld Conference & Expo (see www.clusterworldexpo.com for details and registration information). The championship will feature the "final four" contestants who survive the qualifying rounds. Qualification rounds will be held the week of March 29th, and the submission window opens Feb 23rd for registering, uploading and downloading warriors for the competition. The submission window will close at 5 p.m. PST on March 29th.

Logistics and rules are subject to change - check www.gridwars.com for updates.