Huawei’s Olympus Award Recognizes Major Advances in Data Storage Technology
Summary:
- Recognition of Innovation: The 2025 Olympus Award celebrates outstanding technological breakthroughs in data storage from teams worldwide.
- Leading Scholars: Tsinghua University’s team, led by Professor Wu Yongwei, secures the prestigious Olympus Award for innovative solutions addressing performance bottlenecks in AI.
- Future-Oriented Research: The awards emphasize advancements in high-performance storage technologies, aiming to tackle challenges associated with growing data demands.
In a significant celebration of scientific innovation, Huawei unveiled the recipients of the fifth “Olympus Award” at the 2025 Global Data Storage Professor Forum. This year, six distinguished research teams from around the world were honored for their exceptional contributions to the field of data storage technology, underscoring the importance of resolving critical challenges in the industry.
Recognition of Excellence
Each awarded team demonstrated remarkable ingenuity in their approach to solving pressing issues in data storage. The Olympus Award—the highest accolade—was granted to Professor Wu Yongwei’s team from Tsinghua University. Their groundbreaking technical solution, characterized by “inventory-based conversion,” effectively addresses performance and efficiency bottlenecks in large model reasoning. This innovative method exemplifies the potential to significantly enhance data processing capabilities in modern applications.
Background and Purpose of the Olympus Award
Established by Huawei in 2019, the Olympus Award aims to stimulate investment in foundational theoretical research within the data storage domain. The initiative fosters cooperative efforts among industry, academia, and research institutions, facilitating the transition of scientific findings into practical applications. Since its inception, the award has attracted over 310 scholars from 12 countries, awarding six Olympus Awards and 18 Olympus Pioneer Awards to date.
For 2024, Huawei plans to allocate two Olympus Awards and five Olympus Pioneer Awards, featuring a prize amounting to 1 million yuan for the Olympus Award and 200,000 yuan for the Pioneer Award. Winning teams gain access to technical resources and research support from Huawei, further enhancing their capabilities.
Key Focus Areas for 2024
The 2025 Olympus Award spotlights two essential themes: “Cost-effective Storage Technology” and “New Data Bases for the AI Era.” This innovative focus aims to tackle the myriad challenges posed by the exponential growth in data and the escalating demands associated with AI technologies. Key areas of concern include:
- Insufficient xPU and Storage Bandwidth: Addressing the limitations in processing and storage capacities that can hinder efficiency.
- Low Cluster Availability: Enhancing access to high-performance computing clusters to support expansive data operations.
- Extended Model Inference Time: Reducing latency to optimize model deployment in real-time applications.
- Rising Data Storage Costs: Mitigating the financial implications of storing rapidly increasing amounts of data.
The Olympus Awards not only recognize technological prowess but also drive industry-wide progress and sustainability.
Award-Winning Projects
The competitive landscape attracted substantial participation, with 95 experts from 19 universities and research institutions submitting applications. The following teams emerged as winners:
Olympus Award:
- Tsinghua University: “Inventory-Based Conversion for Large Model Reasoning”
Olympus Pioneer Awards:
- Fudan University: “High-Dimensional Vector Approximation Search Technology for Multimodal Data”
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Peking University: “Efficient Cache Management and AI Data Base”
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology: “Cost-Effective High-Density Magnetic/Optical Storage Media Technology”
- City University of Hong Kong: “Hypercompression: A Model Compression Algorithm Based on Superfunctions”
- University of Technology Berlin: “Declarative Data Processing of Large-scale Data Sets and Streams”
Looking Ahead: Challenges for the 6th Olympus Award
During the forum, Chang Sheng, Huawei’s R&D director of the data storage product line, outlined the thematic focus and key challenges for the upcoming sixth Olympus Award. The identified themes are:
- New Media Technology for the AI Era:
- High-performance, large-capacity AI SSD technology
- Temperature data storage media technology
- Agentic AI Native Data Base:
- Management and knowledge generation technology for multimodal data
- AI data acceleration network architecture technology
These challenges aim to drive the exploration of advanced technologies that can enhance data management and processing efficiency in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.
Conclusion
The Olympus Awards stand as a beacon for innovation within the data storage field, promoting collaboration among researchers and industry professionals. As data volumes proliferate and new technologies emerge, initiatives such as this ensure that transformative solutions are consistently developed to meet our ever-growing data needs. The commitment exhibited by award-winning teams reinforces the vital role of scientific research in shaping the future of technology.
