Hello, Codeforces!
We are happy to invite you to an exciting online event: ICPC Online Challenge powered by Huawei.
This Challenge features the problem
Scheduling Algorithm for Collaborative Inference System With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, large language model (LLM) services are becoming increasingly integrated into people’s daily lives and work. At the same time, the economic efficiency and data security of these services are receiving greater attention.
Edge-Cloud Collaborative Inference has emerged as a promising approach to addressing these challenges. In this architecture, LLM inference is divided between a user’s on-premises edge environment and the cloud. Using a U-shaped split, the first and last layers of the model run on the edge, while the computationally intensive middle layers run in the cloud. This allows private inputs and outputs to remain on the user’s side while cloud resources are used for the heavier computation.
However, this architecture requires repeated interaction between the edge and the cloud during both the prefill and decoding stages. When requests are processed sequentially, these interactions can create “bubbles”—periods in which computing resources remain idle while waiting for other parts of the system.
Your challenge is to design a concurrent scheduling strategy that:
- maximizes overall system throughput; and
- ensures that every request satisfies its latency Service Level Objective (SLO).
Participants will need to carefully coordinate computation and communication across the edge and cloud while balancing throughput and per-request latency requirements.
We hope you will enjoy this challenging optimization problem inspired by real-world AI infrastructure.
Start: August 14, 2026 11:00 UTC (UTC+0)
Finish: August 28, 2026 10:59 UTC (UTC+0)
Prizes
| Rank | Prize | |
| Grand Prize (Rank 1) | € 12 000 EUR + travel and an invitation to the the 50th Annual ICPC World Finals in a guest role | |
| First Prize (Rank 2-6) | € 8,000 EUR | |
| Second Prize (Rank 7-16) | € 3,000 EUR | |
| Third Prize (Rank 17-50): | € 800 EUR | |
| * If the allocated Huawei Challenge prize cannot be delivered to your region for any reason it may be replaced by another prize (if no legal restrictions), at the discretion of the Sponsor. | ||
By participating in this Challenge, you agree to the official Rules.
The use of AI tools, including generative AI and AI-assisted coding tools, is permitted during the Challenge. Participants remain fully responsible for the correctness, originality, and compliance of their submissions with all applicable rules.
To be eligible for a prize, you must register through: https://icpc.global/regionals/finder/ICPC-Online-Challenge-2026.
If you cannot access the rules document, please contact [email protected].
Good luck, and we hope you enjoy this complex yet exciting Challenge!