Since 2007, the cluster competitions have been instrumental in providing hands-on training for the next generation in HPC. Students are exposed to technologies and processes that inspire them to seek their role within the HPC community, while learning the interconnectedness between hardware, software, and applications to solve real-world problems.
The competitions create opportunities for industry, national labs, and academic institutions to work collaboratively to build the HPC community, often influencing HPC curricula for students.
In 2007, the Student Cluster Competition (SCC) was created to help foster students in all aspects of HPC, providing opportunities for students to showcase their expertise in a friendly, spirited competition. Hosted by the Students@SC program and held at the SC Conference, the competition has traditionally drawn teams of undergraduate students from around the world.
A new virtual competition, the IndySCC, was created in 2021 with an emphasis on education for less experienced teams. In 2026, IndySCC changed its name to SCC Connect.
Drop downs for each year include photos and a full listing of winners, teams, benchmarks, applications, and posters.
2026
INDYSCC BECOMES SCC CONNECT
SCC enters its 20th year while IndySCC enters its sixth year with a new name, SCC Connect, to better reflect the goals of engagement, inclusion, and connection.
2025
OFFICIAL SC AWARDS
IndySCC Overall Winner is added to the official SC Awards, inviting the winning team to receive award certificates along with the Student Cluster Competition Overall Winner at the Thursday Awards Ceremony.
16โ21 November 2025
St. Louis, Missouri
SCC AWARDEE
SCC Overall Winner
National Taiwan University
SCC TEAMS & POSTERS
Clemson University
ETH Zรผrich
Nanyang Technological University
National University of Singapore
Texas A&M University
University of Bristol
University of California, San Diego
SCC Team Profiles
SCC BENCHMARKS
High-Performance Linpack (HPL)
HPC Mixed Precision (HPL-MxP)
MLPerf Inference
SCC APPLICATIONS
Exascale Climate Emulator
Structural Simulation Toolkit (SST)
ACTS (Mystery Application)
REPRODUCIBILITY CHALLENGE
Imm_hclib
INDYSCC AWARDEE
IndySCC Overall Winner
Zhejiang University
INDYSCC TEAMS
Thirty-three teams from 13 countries competed in the IndySCC at SC25:
IndySCC Team Profiles
IndySCC Team Posters
26 PDF Files (11MB ZIP)
INDYSCC BENCHMARKS
INDYSCC APPLICATIONS
17โ22 November 2024
Atlanta, Georgia
SCC AWARDEES
Tsinghua University
Highest Linpack Benchmark
Friedrich-Alexander-Universitรคt
National Tsing Hua University
Peking University
University of Helsinki / Aalto University
University of New Mexico
NAMD
ICON
Find My Cat (Mystery Application)
DataLife
Nineteen teams from five countries competed in the IndySCC at SC24:
18 PDF Files (22MB ZIP)
INDYSCC APPLICATION
12โ17 November 2023
Denver, Colorado
Peking University (181.9 Teraflops)
Boston University / Brown University / University of Massachusetts Boston
New York University
ShanghaiTech University
University of Kansas
HPC Conjugate Gradient (HPCG)
STREAM (optional)
OSU (optional)
MPAS (Atmosphere Core)
3DMHD (Three-Dimensional Magento Hydro Dynamic)
Capture-the-Flag (Mystery Application)
SBC
Arizona State University
Colorado School of Mines
CSC IT Center for Science, Finland
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzen
Durham University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Indiana University / Purdue University
Jackson State University
Nanchang University
Southern University of Science and Technology, China
University of California, Santa Cruz
Universidad Nacional de Cรณrdoba
Wake Forest University
Hero HPL
13โ18 November 2022
Dallas, Texas
University of California, San Diego (114.26 Teraflops)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology / Boston University / Northeastern University
Prairie View A&M University / California State University Channel Islands
Purdue University / Indiana University
Southeast University
Sun Yat-sen University
University of Texas at Austin
LINPACK (HPL)
IO500
AI (MLPerf Inference with RetinaNet)
PHASTA
LAMMPS
SeisSol (Mystery Application)
DACE
CSC/LUT University / Tampere University / University of Helsinki / Aalto University
Monash University
Southern University of Science and Technology
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Universitas Indonesia
University of Texas at El Paso
INDYSCC BENCHMARK
LINPACK
miniVite
2021
ADVENT OF INDYSCC
The IndySCC is conceived as a new cluster competition serving as a gateway to the SCC for less experienced teams. The remote 48-hour contest took place the weekend before SC21.
14โ18 November 2021
Overall Winner
Southern University of Science and Technology (280 Teraflops)
Boston University / Boston College / University of Massachusetts Lowel
HPCG
Cardioid
Quantum ESPRESSO
CosmicTagger (Mystery Application)
bnlearn
Texas A&M University / Prairie View A&M University
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
GROMACS
John the Ripper
2020
SCC GOES VIRTUAL
SCC becomes the Virtual Student Cluster Competition (VSCC) to accommodate remote participants due to the pandemic.
HOSTED WEBINARS
SCC begins hosting informational webinars, made available to VSCC participants on the SC Conference Series YouTube channel.
9โ19 November 2020
Virtual Event
Massachusetts Institute of Technology / Boston University
North Carolina State University
Northeastern University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
University of Illinois
University of Texas
University of Warsaw
Parallel Computing with Climate Models
Gromacs
MiniVite (Mystery Application)
MemXCT
17โ22 November 2019
AWARDEES
TEAMS
Oak Ridge National Laboratory / University of Tennessee / Pellissippi State Community College / Maryville College
Purdue University
University of Tartu / Riga Technical University
University of Warsaw / Warsaw University of Technology
University of Washington
BENCHMARKS
APPLICATIONS
VPIC
SST
Power Shutoff Activity
Sparkler (Mystery Application)
NormalModes
11โ16 November 2018
TEAMS & POSTERS
Illinois Institute of Technology
Laney College
Telkom University
University of Illinois Urbana-Campaign
University of Massachusetts Boston
University of Warsaw / ลรณdลบ University of Technology / Warsaw University of Technology
Parallel Deep Learning with Horovod
OpenMC
WRF (Mystery Application)
Seissol
2017
CLOUD RESOURCES
Teams are provided access to a limited amount of cloud resources to augment their on-site cluster. The teams are challenged to use this additional resource to accelerate their workflows.
12โ17 November 2017
Friedrich-Alexander-Universitรคt / Technical University of Munich
Illinois Institute of Technology / Maine South High School / Adlai E. Stevenson High School
San Diego State University / Southwestern Oklahoma State University
University of Massachusetts Boston / University of Massachusetts Lowell / Harvard University
University of Science and Technology of China
University of Texas at Austin / Texas State University
University of Utah
William Henry Harrison High School
MrBayes
Born
Cloud Component
MPAS A (Mystery Application)
Tersoff Potential within LAMMPS
2016
For the first time, students attempt to reproduce results from an accepted paper from the prior year’s Papers program.
POWER SHUTOFFACTIVITY
Teams must arrange their clusters and workloads to be tolerant of power failures as power is cut at a random, undisclosed time.
13โ18 November 2016
Salt Lake City, Utah
Boston University / University of Massachusetts Boston / Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Northeastern University / Auburn University
San Diego State University
Technische Universitรคt Mรผnchen
Universidad EAFIT
Distributed Password Auditing/Recovery
Paraview
ParConnect
Gromacs (Mystery Application)
2015
TEAM POSTERS ARE INTRODUCED
Team posters were available for conference attendees to view and included information about the teams and their strategies.
MYSTERY APPLICATION PREMIERES
Competition organizers reveal an application to the teams on-site rather than months in advance, keeping the students on their toes.
15โ20 November 2015
Austin, Texas
Northern Arizona University / Arizona State University / University of Arizona
Pawsey Supercomputing Centre
University of Oklahoma
BENCHMARK
Trinity
WRF
MILC
HPC Repast
HPCG (Mystery Application)
16โ21 November 2014
New Orleans, Louisiana
Boston University / Massachusetts Institute of Technology / Northeastern University
iVEC
University of Tennessee
HPCC
ADCIRC
HPL
Matlab
Enzo (Mystery Application)
18โ21 November 2013
National University of Defense Technology
Massachusetts Green HPC Center
University of Colorado
University of the Pacific
Graphlab
NEMO5
OpenFOAM (Mystery Application)
10โ16 November 2012
National University of Defense Technology (8.224 Teraflops)
Texas Tech University
CAM
pFlotran
QMCPack
12โ18 November 2011
Seattle, Washington
Lobachevsky University(1.93 Teraflops)
Boston University
Lobachevsky University
Tecnolรณgico de Costa Rica
GADGET
PFA
POP
2010
GIGAFLOPS TO TERAFLOPS
For the first time, the Highest Linpack Benchmark is awarded to a team with a score in teraflops.
13โ19 November 2010
(1.07 Teraflops)
Florida A&M University
Louisiana State University
Stony Brook University
Password Cracking
FLASH
14โ20 November 2009
Portland, Oregon
(692 Gigaflops)
CHombo
NWChem
Vislt
15โ21 November 2008
Indiana University
(703 Gigaflops)
Indiana University / Technical University of Dresden
University of Alberta
GAMESS
OpenFOAM
POY
RAxML
WPP
2007
FIRST SCC AT SC
Six teams compete in the inaugural Student Cluster Competition hosted by the SC Conference in Reno, Nevada.
10โ16 November 2007
Reno, Nevada
(420 Gigaflops)
POV-Ray
During the Student Cluster Competition (SCC), teams of undergraduate students build, operate, and tune powerful cluster computers.
A cluster competition with the intent to create a more education-focused track of the Student Cluster Competition.
