SuperCon 2025 — 31st Supercomputing Contest held for high school and technical college students
Together with Osaka University's Digital Design, Datability, and Decision Intelligence (D3) Center and the RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS), Science Tokyo’s Center for Information Infrastructure (CII) and the Supercomputing Research Center within the Institute of Integrated Research hosted the 2025 Supercomputing Contest (SuperCon 2025) for high school and technical college students from August 19 to 22. This year's contest was the thirty-first of its kind.
During SuperCon, teams of two to three students from high schools or technical colleges attempt to solve challenging problems using a supercomputer. With a focus on both accuracy and speed, the teams have four days to create programs that address these problems.
This year’s contest was held online using TSUBAME4.0, the supercomputer at Science Tokyo. The finals included 21 teams — 57 participants from 17 schools — who had won in the preliminary rounds.
Challenge: Installation of offshore wind farms
The main question in this year’s finals focused on offshore wind power generation, challenging participants to determine the optimal turbine layout for maximizing total power generation. Contestants worked tirelessly to achieve high-speed solutions leveraging the unique characteristics of the graphic processing units in TSUBAME4.0.
Results and closing ceremony
The results of the contest were announced in conjunction with the closing ceremony on August 22, where joint organizers made remarks on the participants’ efforts. From the host institution, Science Tokyo President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Naoto Ohtake offered his comments, as did CII Director Masahiko Tomoishi. Sayaka Tohyama from the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ) and Takeharu Shiraga from the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE) also shared their greetings. Director-General Takashi Fuchigami of the Research Promotion Bureau at Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology also delivered a video message commending the participants for their hard work.
Next, CII Professor and SuperCon Committee Chair Shin-ya Nishizaki announced the top three teams of the competition. Associate Professor Ryohei Kobayashi from the Supercomputing Research Center within Science Tokyo’s Institute of Integrated Research then provided an explanation of and solution to the final problem, which he authored, and evaluated the work done by the top three student teams.
SuperCon 2025 winners
1st place: Team sabotage, Senior High School at Komaba, University of Tsukuba
2nd place: Team Redpass, Senior High School at Komaba, University of Tsukuba
3rd place: Team LogConst, Toyama Prefectural Toyama Chubu Senior High School
Team sabotage was also announced as the recipient of the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award. This year’s Supercomputing Encouragement Award from IEICE and the Young Researcher Encouragement Award from IPSJ both went to Team LogConst.
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Contact
SuperCon 2025 Committee
Email sc25query@cii.isct.ac.jp