cuOpt™ is a GPU-accelerated optimization engine that targets linear programming (LP), quadratic programming (QP), and vehicle routing problems (VRP), with support for quadratically constrained quadratic programming (QCQP) (beta), second-order cone programming (SOCP) (beta), and mixed integer programming (MIP) (beta). cuOpt enables near real-time solutions for large-scale LPs with millions of variables and constraints and offers easy integration into existing modeling languages and deployment across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
For any questions or need for support, please visit cuOpt repo Discussions page.
]]>PS: It is great to see cuOpt, our 2025 winner, continuing to be developed and improve.
]]>We are pleased to announce that the NVIDIA cuOpt team is awarded the 2025 COIN-OR Cup for NVIDIA cuOpt. cuOpt supports solving linear programming (LP), mixed-integer programming (MIP), and vehicle routing problems (VRP) on NVIDIA GPUs, achieving competitive performance across diverse benchmarks. The team’s effort to open-source high-quality, industry-grade optimization code represents a major contribution to both the optimization community and the open-source ecosystem. cuOpt has already started a chain reaction in the optimization solver community toward innovating new accelerated algorithms, making GPUs a highly competitive platform for solving large-scale complex optimization problems. Its comprehensive documentation, educational examples, accessible codebase, and integration with other optimization software vendors make it remarkably easy to adopt — empowering researchers and practitioners to leverage GPU computing for modern optimization challenges.
Team members:
Anandh Brahmanya Anandh
Kumar Aatish
Nicolas Blin
Alice Boucher
Burcin Bozkaya
Akif Çördük
Joe Eaton
Alex Fender
Rajesh Gandham
Nicolas Lee Guidotti
Hugo Linsenmaier
Chris Maes
Preethi Maulik
Trevor McKay
Shankara Rao Thejaswi Nanditale
Ramakrishna Prabhu
Ishika Roy
Piotr Sielski
GUIDELINES FOR COIN-OR CUP SUBMISSIONS:
A submission or nomination must contain:
Self-nominations are welcome and encouraged.
Submission deadline: Tuesday, September 30th 2025, 11:59pm ET.
Please e-mail your submissions to coin-cup-2025@coin-or.org in a single zipped archive, containing a description of your submission and copies of all relevant papers/documents in pdf format.
Committee members: Daniel Bienstock, Haihao Lu (chair), Jinwen Yang.
The winner will be announced and celebrated during the INFORMS annual meeting. Details for the announcement and celebration will be revealed when available.
]]>Optimization has always been at the core of computational research, and now, a new frontier is emerging—one where open-source innovation meets GPU acceleration. COIN-OR and NVIDIA are collaborating to bring NVIDIA cuOpt, a GPU-accelerated optimization engine, into the COIN-OR open-source ecosystem. This collaboration aims to empower researchers, developers, and industry leaders with cutting-edge tools to drive breakthroughs in large-scale optimization.
This is more than just an open-source release—it’s about fostering a dynamic, community-driven ecosystem where experts can push the boundaries of optimization, explore novel GPU-powered techniques, and accelerate real-world impact.
The COIN-OR Foundation was born out of a need: By the late ‘90s, optimization research was advancing rapidly, yet the lack of open-source software was slowing progress. In 2000, IBM launched the COIN-OR Initiative to change that, providing a public repository of open-source tools for optimization. By 2004, COIN-OR had grown into an independent, nonprofit educational foundation, dedicated to fostering a thriving, community-driven ecosystem for computational operations research.
Today, COIN-OR has evolved into a global hub for open innovation, hosting over 70 projects on GitHub and supporting thousands of researchers and practitioners worldwide. As a strategic partner of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) Computing Society, COIN-OR organizes annual competitions, workshops, and fosters the development of major open-source projects such as Cbc, Ipopt, and HiGHS. Our mission remains steadfast: to provide the tools and platform for optimization researchers to push the boundaries of computational science.
As the algorithms for workhorse problem classes, such as mixed-integer linear optimization, have matured, the focus of computational research has shifted towards leveraging existing solvers as black-box tools for tackling increasingly complex problem classes, such as multi-stage stochastic optimization, robust optimization, and bilevel optimization.
The rise of machine learning and GPU acceleration has now created new opportunities to reimagine optimization algorithms. By harnessing the massive parallelism of GPUs, classical optimization methods—such as continuous linear optimization—are being revolutionized, enabling faster, more scalable solutions. Early indications suggest that GPU acceleration could lead to entirely new algorithmic breakthroughs, transforming how optimization problems are solved.
At COIN-OR, we believe in building on the past to shape the future and our partnership with NVIDIA marks a milestone in the evolution of open-source optimization. We are thrilled to collaborate with NVIDIA as it releases NVIDIA cuOpt—its GPU-accelerated optimization algorithms—under an open-source license, making it available within the COIN-OR repository.
This partnership isn’t just about making cuOpt open source—it’s about building a vibrant research and development environment, where COIN-OR and NVIDIA will co-sponsor implementation challenges, host dedicated sessions at major conferences, and engage with the broader COIN-OR community.
By combining NVIDIA’s GPU expertise with COIN-OR’s deep roots in open-source optimization, we aim to fuel innovation, accelerate research, and reimagine new possibilities in large-scale optimization.
This is just the beginning. We look forward to the groundbreaking discoveries that will emerge from this partnership. If you are a researcher, developer, or industry leader passionate about optimization, now is the time to get involved—join us as we embark on this exciting journey!
]]>COIN-OR is evolving rapidly, and directors can have a significant
influence on the development of the Foundation. Candidates should be
actively interested in COIN-OR and committed to active participation
in Foundation business. For more information on the activities of and
expectations for directors, prospective candidates are encouraged to
contact any current directors or the Foundation Secretary
(secretary at coin-or.org).
Note that membership in COIN-OR is not required. Candidates with
expertise in the software industry or experience as a director for a
non-profit organization will be eagerly welcomed.
The Foundation encourages the nomination of any interested individuals,
particularly users of COIN-OR software, who have not previously
been active participants in COIN-OR projects. Diversity of viewpoints
and skills is both needed and appreciated.
For all director positions, a candidate may be nominated by any
interested individual. Self-nomination is encouraged. All nominations
must be seconded by a full member of the Foundation.
Nominations should be emailed to the Secretary (secretary at
coin-or.org) and will be accepted until November 15, 2024. Candidates
must agree to be nominated and will be contacted to provide a short
biography and statement to be distributed to the full members of the
Foundation prior to the election.
Prize Committee: Mihai Anitescu (Argonne National Laboratory), Sungho Shin (MIT), François Pacaud (Université Paris)
If you are attending the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle on October 21, join us to celebrate the winners and the 20th anniversary of the COIN-OR Foundation. Watch the conference’s social media for the time and location.
]]>GUIDELINES FOR COIN-OR CUP SUBMISSIONS:
A submission or nomination must contain:
1. A synopsis of an effective use of COIN-OR or valuable contribution to COIN-OR (or both!), including an explanation of its significance. Maximum 3 pages (pdf format).
2. Copies of relevant papers or documents (pdf format). We especially encourage nominations describing an effective use of COIN-OR that the community may not know about.
3. A submission to this Google form: https://forms.gle/CmtnpQoCeCXNiPM17
Self-nominations are welcome and encouraged.
Submission deadline: Friday, October 4th 2024.
Please e-mail your submissions to coin-cup-2024@coin-or.org in a single zipped archive, containing a description of your submission and copies of all relevant papers/documents in pdf format.
The winner will be announced and celebrated during the INFORMS annual meeting. Details for the announcement and celebration will be revealed when available.
]]>Well done, Robin; it is fantastic to see your contributions over so many years being acknowledged.
COIN-OR Strategic Leadership Board
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