An Extreme-Scale Computational Approach to Redistricting Optimization

Shaowen Wang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Usage Details

This project exploits the massive computational power provided by the Blue Waters supercomputer for computationally intensive zoning optimization research. Zoning can be formulated as NP-hard discrete optimization problems, and has attracted significant research interests in political science, geographic information science (GIScience), and operations research with tremendous broader impacts. The project team, led by Dr. Shaowen Wang, will develop computational approaches to addressing the fundamental question of how to evaluate bias (racial, partisan, or otherwise) in zoning plans at fine spatial scales. A parallel genetic algorithm (PGA) library will be extended and enhanced on Blue Waters to scale zoning optimization capabilities to hundreds of thousands of problem variables.