HPC/AI Events

Which HPC Events?

Whatever the scale of supercomputing/HPC or AI infrastructure you are using, from handfuls of GPUs to hyperscale AI supercomputing infrastructure, getting involved with the active supercomputing/HPC community can help you - whether you need technical insight, networking time or career development. Online resources can help, but by far the most effective way of benefiting from the wider HPC community is by participating at the right events.

The two big conferences

The two big all-in-one supercomputing events of the year are the annual Supercomputing Conference (SC), held in each November in the USA, and the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC), held each May/June in Germany. SC offers a large technical programme, an educational programme and a huge exhibition. As well as the official conference, there is a whole side conference taking place in the surrounding hotels, as vendors run non-stop briefings for key customers, and the heads of supercomputer centres assess the market. There is no single bigger week in the HPC calendar. ISC is similar to SC, just a little smaller, with about 3,000 attendees as opposed to about 15,000. But some people think ISC is a friendlier event because of its smaller size and different type of location. Certainly the potential for ad hoc networking is very good, as opposed to the need for well planned networking at SC.

The next tier - networking, case studies, focus

Then there are the smaller events, ranging from 50 to several hundred attendees, which place a greater focus on networking opportunities, or presenting case studies, updates from major HPC users, national labs and vendors, or focus on a specific audience. These smaller or more focused events are often seen as more approachable and much less daunting than the large SC and ISC conferences.

Perhaps most useful are what I call the "niche nuggets". These are (sometimes smaller) workshops that centre on a specific theme. If that theme or the resulting audience is relevant to you, then these can be very productive events. These are often organised by national labs, major HPC centres, or groupings of end-users. They may be focused on an industry - for example, aerospace or oil and gas - or on a technology area. These workshops bring together users in a given field to discuss how to do HPC better, or to learn about the challenges and opportunities coming from future HPC/AI technology.

Of this category, the two I have found very valuable are (1) the Rice Energy HPC Conference (>800 attendees) held in Houston each March, and a very good HPC conference in its own right; and (2) Multicore World (<100 attendees) held in New Zealand each February, and very much a supercomputing workshop in spite of the somewhat dated name!

Technical conferences

At the other end of the spectrum are those conferences that are predominantly about the technical programme, such as the SIAM Parallel Processing or CSE conferences. These are great for career development if you are involved in research into HPC technology, a programmer of HPC systems, or a scientist making regular use of HPC.

The private/secret ones

Finally, there is another category of HPC conferences/workshops - those that are not advertised, or are "invitation only", etc. These are usually very good (if you are able to secure an invite!). These include "Salishan", "SOS", "Smokey Mountains", "Monterey", and others.

Meetups

Whilst not HPC conferences as such, there are also various regular organised HPC/AI meetups around the world that are managed well enough to be close to mini-workshops. One example of this would be HPC Club.

List of HPC/AI Events

2025

• November 30 - December 3, CHPC National Conference, South Africa - local national event run by CHPC that attracts some international speakers

• December 3-5, Supercomputing Africa, Morocco - new for 2025

• December 4-5, CIUK, Manchester, UK - focused on UK academic community

2026

• January 26-29, SCA / HPC Asia, Osaka, Japan - first time co-locating SCA and HPCAsia, should be a strong event

• February 16-20, Multicore World, Christchurch, NZ - fascinating and valuable close knit event

• February 24-26, Rice Energy HPC & AI Conference, Houston, TX USA - high quality HPC conference, historically excellent attendee mix

• March 10-12, EuroHPC Summit, Cyprus - primary European HPC event led by EuroHPC JU and associated partners

• March 16-19, GTC, San Jose, CA USA - huge!

• March, SOS, USA - invite only (SNL/ORNL/CSCS)

• April, Salishan, OR USA - invite only (DOE NNSA)

• April 26-30, Cray User Group (CUG), Nice, France - for members only but is a useful technical HPC conference with good networking opportunities

• May, Hyperion HPC User Forum, Austin, TX USA - range of updates from HPC sites and vendors

• June 22-26, ISC, Hamburg, Germany - one of the two big ones

• July 26-30, PEARC, Minneapolis, MN USA - focused on the US academic community and is a large HPC event

• August, Smokey Mountains, TN USA - invite only

• September, HPCLI, tbc - see this page :-)

• November 15-20, SC, Chicago, IL USA - the bigger of the two big ones

If your favourite conference is missing then I would be interested to hear about it.