Update 14/04/25 - Note that we are no longer assisting individuals in forming teams, as we have more team registrations than there are places for. We are still accepting registrations of teams with the full 6 students.

Interested in finding out more about High Performance Computing?

Advanced Research Computing are once again running the popular BEAR (Birmingham Environment for Academic Research) Challenge at the University of Birmingham, to allow undergraduate and taught Masters students to experience using a High Performance Computing (HPC) system. We're looking for teams of 6 students to take part in a series of challenges held over three days, which will see you getting dedicated access to resource within Baskerville, the University's Tier 2, national supercomputer with 208 A100 GPU’s.

We’ll start the Challenge off with a crash course in how to use Baskerville, followed by several challenges to complete, with each member of the highest scoring team at the end of the three days winning a prize. The challenges will include data science and artificial intelligence tasks using Baskerville’s state of the art GPU’s. We want to challenge you and for you to learn about High Performance Computing (HPC) systems and techniques!

The challenges will be run in conjunction with industry experts from some of the leading technology companies in the HPC field, plus several members of Birmingham’s Advanced Research Computing team. We will also have talks on careers in HPC from leaders in the field.

So, if you are interested in finding out more about High Performance Computing and the career possibilities available, then the BEAR Challenge is for you!

Who is it for?

Each team should be made up of 6 students from the University of Birmingham, you should be an undergraduate or Masters student at the University.

Note that we are no longer assisting individuals in forming teams, as we have more team registrations than there are places for. We are still accepting registrations of teams with the full 6 students.

Student team members should have a good working knowledge of coding using a programming language plus at least one member of your team should have experience using a Linux command line.

To register your team's interest you will need to know the name, email address, year and course of each team member. Please give University of Birmingham email addresses, as we will need to verify and register your username for use on the HPC systems.

When is it taking place?

BEAR Challenge is taking place over the three consecutive days of Tuesday 24th to Thursday 26th June. Lunch will be provided each day.

Where is it taking place?

We're running the BEAR Challenge on campus, we'll be providing more details on location to those teams who are successful in being awarded a place.

What does my team need?

Each team will need a team leader who will be responsible for registering their team. Each team member should bring their own laptop to be able to connect remotely to Baskerville to complete the challenges.

If you have any questions about the Challenge, please contact bearinfo@contacts.bham.ac.uk

The deadline to register your interest is midnight on Friday 30th May, so make sure you sign up by then!

If my team has registered their interest, have they definitely got a place?

Last year, the BEAR Challenge was heavily oversubscribed and unfortunately we did not have room for all the teams that applied. This year, we are expanding the number of teams that we can accept but please ensure that you take time to write a compelling paragraph (between 100-150 words) describing why your team would like to take part in the Challenge, which we will use to prioritise teams if the Challenge is oversubscribed. Other factors that we will take into consideration are:

1) Priority for teams that are already formed of 6 people

2) Priority for teams made up of individuals that have not taken part in the BEAR Challenge previously

We aim to let the designated team leader know if their team has been successful in getting a place by Monday 9th June.

BEAR Challenge 2025