Elite Collegiate Programmers to Compete at IBM-Sponsored International ''Battle of the Brains'' in Shanghai.

SOMERS, N.Y. -- Next Generation of Tech Talent to Experience the POWER of Programming on IBM's Blue Gene Supercomputer

More than 200 university programmers, from San Diego to Seoul, and from Wisconsin to Warsaw, have earned the right to compete at the most prestigious programming competition of its kind.

Seventy-eight teams of three students each will take part in the 29th Annual World Finals of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), April 3 - 7, 2005, in Shanghai, China. And, for the first time, in a separate POWER challenge, finalists will be able to build applications on IBM's POWER-based IBM eServer Blue Gene supercomputer.

More than 4,100 teams worldwide entered in the contest's regional competitions. Since IBM began sponsoring this event in 1997, it has grown five-fold, with this year's regional contests drawing more than ten thousand participants from 71 countries on 6 continents. World Finals teams will need to solve eight or more complex, real-world programming problems, under a grueling five-hour deadline. The team that solves the most problems correctly in the least amount of time will emerge as the international champion, earning scholarships, IBM prizes, and bragging rights to the "world's smartest" trophy.

The ACM sponsorship is a key component of IBM's university-based initiatives, which are designed to stimulate high-value programming skills to develop a more competitive IT workforce capable of driving innovation and economic growth. In support of the National Innovation Initiative, IBM helps educational institutions by providing the technology and expertise to generate "in demand skills for an On Demand world;" technology grants for collaborative research to solve real-world problems; and recruitment channels to identify the best and brightest candidates for a diverse, innovative workforce.

Each year at the World Finals, the ACM-ICPC introduces new programming technologies and techniques in a fun and competitive way. This year's contest, dubbed the Parallel Challenge, is designed to introduce programmers to POWER parallel computing technologies. Teams will be asked to create a parallel application and run it on a Blue Gene system in Shanghai. Known for their enormous speed, memory, storage capacity and number-crunching capabilities, IBM POWER-based parallel supercomputers have been used to solve some of the most difficult problems in physics, engineering, biology, geology and the environment.

"This event will give young programmers exposure to advanced programming environments, an experience that will help launch their careers in information technology," said Dr. Gabby Silberman, Program Director, IBM Centers for Advanced Studies, and Sponsorship Executive. "Today, there is significant focus on the development of software that will run on parallel supercomputers. Giving student programmers access to Blue Gene is a rare opportunity to write an application capable of running on the world's most powerful supercomputer. The Parallel Challenge is a great way to introduce these concepts in a game environment."

A larger version of the Blue Gene system was ranked the world's most powerful supercomputer in November 2004 with a peak speed of 70.72 trillion calculations per second, or teraflops (www.top500.org). The architecture is also proving to be readily adaptable to a range of applications, simplifying application development to a new generation of scientists and engineers.

"The ICPC is the world's most prestigious university competition in the computing sciences and engineering," said Dr. Bill Poucher, ICPC Executive Director and Baylor University Professor. "IBM has partnered with the ICPC, ACM, and universities around the world to grow the competition to five times its size since 1997. In particular, we are excited to see each year's World Champions setting new standards of excellence for their peers, our best and brightest student problem solvers."

As part of IBM's continuing commitment to education, the company will be working closely with team coaches to provide technology and software to universities, as well as learn more about how professors keep their curriculum current in today's rapidly changing environment.

The 2004 ACM-ICPC World Finals took place in Prague, Czech Republic last March, where the St. Petersburg Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics emerged as the world champion. For more information on the 2005 ACM Programming Contest, hosted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, visit the contest Web site at http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/finals/default.htm.

WORLD FINALS TEAMS

North America
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California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA)
Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA)
Duke University (Durham, NC)
George Mason University (Fairfax, VA)
Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA)
Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago, IL)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston, MA)
Michigan Technological University (Houghton, MI)
New York University (New York, NY)
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (New Brunswick, NJ)
Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)
Texas A&M University (College Station, TX)
University of Alberta (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
University of British Columbia (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)
University of Calgary (Calgary, Alberta, Canada)
University of California - San Diego (San Diego, CA)
University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL)
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor (Ann Arbor, MI)
University of Nebraska - Lincoln (Lincoln, NE)
University of New Brunswick (Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada)
University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign, IL)
University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX)
University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)
University of Wisconsin - Madison (Madison, WI)
Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA)

Africa and The Middle East
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The American University in Cairo (Egypt)
University of Cape Town (South Africa)

Asia/South Pacific
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Amirkabir University of Technology (Iran)
Ateneo de Manila University (Philippines)
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Bangladesh)
Fudan University (China)
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (India)
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (India)
Information & Communications University (Korea)
Kyoto University (Japan)
Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)
National Taiwan University (Taiwan)
National University of Singapore (Singapore)
Peking University (China)
Renmin University of China (China)
Seoul National University (Korea)
Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China)
Sharif University of Technology (Iran)
Tsinghua University (China)
University of Auckland (New Zealand)
The University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong)
University of New South Wales (Australia)
University of Tokyo (Japan)
Yonsei University (Korea)
ZhongShan University (China)
Zhejiang University (China)

Europe
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Altai State Technical University (Russia)
Belarusian State University (Belarus)
Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon (France)
Izhevsk State Technical University (Russia)
KTH - Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden)
Moscow State University (Russia)
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway)
Novosibirsk State University (Russia)
Perm State University (Russia)
Politehnica University Bucharest (Romania)
Saratov State University (Russia)
Sofia University (Bulgaria)
St. Petersburg Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics (Russia)
St. Petersburg State University (Russia)
State University of Nizhny Novgorod (Russia)
Ufa State Technical University of Aviation (Russia)
Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (Spain)
University of Wroclaw (Poland)
Ural State University (Russia)
Warsaw University (Poland)

Latin America
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Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla (Mexico)
Instituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica (Brazil)
Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Brazil)
Universidad Simon Bolivar (Venezuela)
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Universidad Tecnologica de la Mixteca (Mexico)

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 85 years of leadership infrastructure software for all types of computing platforms, allowing customers to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. The fastest way to get more information about IBM software is through the IBM home page at http://www.software.ibm.com.

About IBM's POWER Architecture

IBM's power architecture is the basis for the Blue Gene supercomputer research project, which is dedicated to exploring a new family of supercomputer optimized for bandwidth, scalability and the ability to handle large amounts of data while consuming a fraction of the power and floor space required by today's fastest systems. IBM's POWER architecture offers customers open, innovative technology solutions through either the AIX 5L, OS/400 or Linux operating systems that complement the growing demand for 64-bit applications. In addition to being at the core of the powerful, industry leading IBM eServer systems, the POWER microprocessor technology can be found in Nintendo game consoles, Apple computers, and some of the world's most powerful supercomputers and storage systems.

About ACM

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a major force in advancing the skills of information technology professionals and students. ACM serves its global membership of 75,000 by delivering cutting edge technical information and transferring ideas from theory to practice. ACM hosts the computing industry's leading Portal to Computing Literature. With its journals and magazines, special interest groups, conferences, workshops, electronic forums, Career Resource Centre and Professional Development Centre, ACM is a primary resource to the information technology field. For more information, see www.acm.org.