Introducing high performance computing concepts into engineering undergraduate curriculum: a success story

Abstract

This paper discusses a successful story of introducing High Performance Computing (HPC) concepts in an engineering curriculum over a period of the last 6 academic years at various levels of the undergraduate program. The paper also elaborates about the state of the stake holders and infrastructure available at the initial stage, issues and challenges addressed year after year and the current state of the art scenario in the author's institute. HPC introduction is started with shared and distributed memory programming concepts, added with accelerator programming concepts and enhanced using hybrid programming concepts along with the theoretical concepts. The paper also explains the process of teaching and evaluating the students with respect to HPC concepts. It concludes with the direct and indirect benefits to the institutes' stake holders through the introduction of HPC concepts.