[hpc-announce] Workshop on New Architectures for Search and Optimization at IJCAI-ECAI22

[Philippe Codognet]

*** First Call for Papers ***

Workshop on New Architectures for Search and Optimization (NASO 2022)
Messe Wien, Vienna, Austria, July 23-25, 2022, in conjunction with IJCAI-ECAI
22 <https://ijcai-22.org/>
Conference website https://sites.google.com/view/naso-2022
Submission link https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=naso2022
Abstract registration deadline May 13, 2022
Submission deadline May 13, 2022

NASO2022 is a 1-day workshop at IJCAI-ECAI2022 featuring both paper
presentations and open discussions, bringing researchers from various
backgrounds and aiming at maximal interaction between participants, rather
than a sequence of sharply focused formal talks with little interaction
with the audience.

*Aim and Scope*

With the multiplication and increased availability of specialized hardware
and supercomputers for AI applications, the idea of using dedicated
architectures (not only hybrid GPU-enhanced parallel platforms but also
systems based on quantum annealing) for hard search and optimization
problems has seen a rapid development. As fundamental techniques widely
used in AI, search and optimization methods (e.g. constraint programming,
SAT solving or metaheuristics) share the key concern of using in an
efficient manner the computing power at hand, as bigger computing power
means the ability to attack more complex combinatorial problems.

Following many experiments in the last decade aimed at efficiently
parallelizing different types of methods, the challenge is now to devise
efficient techniques and algorithms for Exascale computing, that is,
massively parallel computers with hundreds of thousands of cores in the
form of heterogeneous hybrid systems based on both multi-core processors
and GPUs.

Orthogonal to the deployment of supercomputing hardware, a series of exotic
architectures appeared in the last few years, based on quantum annealing
(D-Wave systems) or quantum-inspired annealing (Fujitsu’s Digital Annealing
Unit, Hitachi’s CMOS Annealing Machine, Toshiba’s Simulated Bifurcation
Machine, Fixstars Amplify Annealer Engine). Their main target is to
efficiently solve combinatorial optimization problems with dedicated
methods on specialized hardware, and clear advances can be expected in that
area over the next decade. Even more exotic are the very recent experiments
with optical computers tackling combinatorial problems formulated as Ising
models.

All these new research directions can pave the way for developing new
search algorithms and combinatorial optimization methods or to the
re-design of well-known techniques in order to boost this growing area of
research through cross-fertilization. This workshop thus aims to be a forum
for researchers working on new architectures for search and optimization in
diverse fields (AI, HPC, algorithms, hardware, quantum computing), willing
to share their experience and to exchange ideas. We would like to provide a
cross-community forum for researchers working on any kind of novel
architectures, and therefore solicit papers on the following topics,
including reports on work in progress, as well as position papers.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

   -

   Parallel and distributed search algorithms for problem solving (search
   algorithms, constraint solving, SAT solving, SMT, logic programming,
   planning, etc),
   -

   Parallel metaheuristics (local search, evolutionary algorithms, ant
   colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, etc)
   -

   Quantum and quantum-inspired annealing for combinatorial problems
   -

   Problem representation in the QUBO and Ising models
   -

   Relations between statistical physics models and combinatorial problems
   -

   Optical computing for combinatorial problems (e.g. based on Ising model)
   -

   Benchmarks and performance comparison between different architectures

*Important dates*

Paper submission: May 13, 2022

Notification: June 3, 2022

Camera ready papers: June 17, 2022

Workshop: exact day TBA (July 23-25, 2022)
Submission Guidelines

We would like to provide a cross-community forum for researchers working on
search methods (Constraint Solving, Logic Programming, SAT solving,
Artificial Intelligence, etc), combinatorial optimization methods
(metaheuristics, local search, tabu search, evolutionary algorithms, ant
colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, memetic algorithms, and
other types of algorithms) and users of alternative computing architectures
(Grids, large PC clusters, massively parallel computers, GPGPUs, edge
computing, heterogeneous multicores, quantum annealers, quantum-inspired
digital annealers, etc) in order to tackle the challenge of efficient
implementations of search and optimization methods on all kinds of exotic
hardware.

We thus solicit papers on the above topics, including reports on work in
progress, as well as position papers.

Papers must not exceed 10 pages in the *IJCAI-ECAI style
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ijcai.org%2Fauthors_kit&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AOvVaw1Wqzk0A96q3gFgY4Wo3F0q>*
and should be submitted through EasyChair at

*https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=naso2022
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Feasychair.org%2Fconferences%2F%3Fconf%3Dnaso2022&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AOvVaw102A4DqUhtwM2xtSNYjeDG>*
.
Committees Program Committee

   -

   Salvador Abreu (NOVA LINCS / University of Évora, Portugal)
   -

   Alejandro Arbelaez (Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain)
   -

   Philippe Codognet (JFLI – CNRS / Sorbonne University / University of
   Tokyo, Japan)
   -

   Daniel Diaz (CRI / University of Paris-1, France)
   -

   Inês Dutra (University of Porto, Portugal)
   -

   Youssef Hamadi (Tempero.tech, Paris, France)
   -

   Jin-Kao Hao (LERIA / University of Angers, France)
   -

   Arnaud Lallouet (Huawei Technologies, Paris, France)
   -

   Inês Lynce (INESC-ID, University of Lisbon, Portugal)
   -

   Danny Múnera (University of Antioquia, Colombia)
   -

   Enrico Pontelli (New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, USA)
   -

   Lakhdar Sais (CRIL / Université d'Artois, Lens, France)
   -

   Vijay Saraswat (Goldman Sachs R&D, NY, USA)
   -

   Meinolf Sellman (Shopify, Ottawa, Canada)

Organizing committee

   -

   Salvador Abreu (NOVA LINCS / University of Évora, Portugal)
   -

   Philippe Codognet (JFLI – CNRS / Sorbonne University / University of
   Tokyo, Japan)
   -

   Daniel Diaz (CRI / University of Paris-1, France)

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to

Philippe Codognet (JFLI – CNRS / Sorbonne University / University of Tokyo,
Japan)

Email: codognet at is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp