HUST students win in major international computer science competition

Collaborating with the algorithm team of Chinese technology giant Huawei, students from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology won championships in a major computer science competition on April 9.

With two championships, one runner-up, and two third-place finishes in four circuits, they became the only team among all participants to win multiple championships and the top three in their first entry.

The team led by Professor Lyu Zhipeng won the ICCAD 2021, an algorithm competition generating leading-edge innovative solutions in electronic design automation research.

"This is a deep integration of academia and industry, and it is one of the most authoritative algorithm competitions. The previous competitions included not only the 'hard-bone' problems that have plagued the industry and academia for many years but also the most cutting-edge application problems, which are very challenging," said Lyu.

"Vehicle Routing Problem" was the theme of this competition. This topic is widely dealt with in logistics and transportation, supply chain optimization, logistics support, advanced manufacturing, and smart cities. Since it was proposed 60 years ago, it has been continuously and deeply studied by international academic and industrial circles.

In addition to winning global awards, the team's related research has been applied in the real world. For example, in the advanced manufacturing industry, the core problem of the material transfer system in the chip foundry is the vehicle routing problem, which needs to consider a series of complex practical factors such as time window, order priority, inventory capacity, and track exclusivity.

Launched in 1990, the challenge is dedicated to promoting algorithm research for major application problems. It is one of the oldest and most professional international professional algorithm competitions in computer science.

The competition was organized by the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, an authoritative organization in the international academic community, with the collaboration of Amazon.