# SUNNY-CP and the MiniZinc Challenge

## TL;DR

This paper presents sunny-cp, a portfolio constraint solver that leverages multicore architectures, demonstrating its competitive performance by winning two gold medals in the MiniZinc Challenge of 2015 and 2016.

## Contribution

It introduces sunny-cp, a novel portfolio solver for constraint programming, and evaluates its success in an international competition, highlighting its effectiveness.

## Key findings

- Sunny-cp won two gold medals in the MiniZinc Challenge 2015 and 2016.
- Portfolio approach significantly improves constraint solving performance.
- Effective utilization of multicore architectures enhances solver efficiency.

## Abstract

In Constraint Programming (CP) a portfolio solver combines a variety of different constraint solvers for solving a given problem. This fairly recent approach enables to significantly boost the performance of single solvers, especially when multicore architectures are exploited. In this work we give a brief overview of the portfolio solver sunny-cp, and we discuss its performance in the MiniZinc Challenge---the annual international competition for CP solvers---where it won two gold medals in 2015 and 2016. Under consideration in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP)