WIDE-RANGING PROGRAM LEAVES LASTING IMPRESSION ON ISC 2017 ATTENDEES

FRANKFURT, Germany, June 30 – ISC Group held a very successful ISC High Performance conference last week, drawing 3,253 attendees from 60 countries. The attendance represented a 5.2 percent increase compared to last year’s event. With this feat, ISC High Performance has officially reached a new milestone in its 32-year conference history.

The conference and exhibition took place from June 18-22 in Frankfurt, Germany. The ISC exhibition was also very successful, thanks to the active participation of 148 leading HPC vendors, research organizations and universities, from 26 countries. Those included 28 exhibitors new to the conference.

It was equally exciting to see 452 members of the Asian and Australian HPC community partake in this year’s event, thus demonstrating an increase of 7.6 percent in the community’s participation in ISC. Over 2,000 attendees came from different parts of Europe, followed by North America, with 624 participants, representing the third highest in by region.

A video highlighting the event is now available on YouTube. High-resolution pictures from the conference and exhibition are also available for download at Flickr.

Good news: the ISC 2017 research paper proceedings are now available for free for a limited period of time. You can download them through the ISC High Performance program page.

The ISC – HPCAC Student Cluster Competition

Eleven student teams were on the show floor this year, vying against each other for the top honors in the sixth annual ISC Student Cluster Competition. Tsinghua University from China emerged as the Overall Competition Winner, thus marking their third win in the contest. They had the honor of receiving their trophy from Wednesday keynote speaker, Professor Thomas Sterling. The second place was captured by the South African team hosted by CHPC, and the third place went to Beihang University, also from China. The Fan Favorite Award went to Universitat Politècnica De Catalunya from Barcelona, who garnered over 2,100 ISC 2017 participant votes to win the title for the second year in a row. The High Linpack award went to competitors from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen in Nuremberg.

The three-day competition was co-organized with the HPC Advisory Council (HPCAC). If you are interested in applying for the 2018 competition, please contact the organizers at scc@isc-events.com.

The Deep Learning Day

Held for the first time, this full-day program offered a good mixture of scientific and industry-related talks. The sessions attracted attendees from the HPC and machine learning communities, who not only showed keen interest in the presentations, but also actively engaged the speakers, establishing fruitful discussions throughout the day.

The ISC STEM Day & Gala

Making history in the community, ISC offered 200 regional and international STEM students the opportunity to participate for free in the conference and exhibition on Wednesday afternoon. Over 100 students were hosted later in the evening in a spectacular gala event and job fair in a nearby upscale hotel. All of this was possible thanks to the support and participation of seven sponsoring organizations. The students also had the opportunity to listen to a couple of talks – one on the value of diversity in the community and the second on the skills required to find jobs in high performance computing. This initiative to build the next generation of HPC users and workers was commended by many industry leaders and ISC attendees.

The ISC Thursday Workshops

Workshop chairs Dr. Michela Taufer, of University of Delaware, and John Shalf, of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, welcomed 646 attendees to 21 workshops. This was an increase of 12 percent compared to last year’s participation. The workshops covered a wide range of topics in hardware, software, and resource management.

ISC 2018

Next year, ISC High Performance will be held from June 24 – 28 in Frankfurt under the leadership of general co-chairs, Martin and Thomas Meuer and program chair, Prof. Horst Simon. For more information, please go to the conference website.

About ISC High Performance

First held in 1986, ISC High Performance is the world’s oldest and Europe’s most important conference and networking event for the HPC community. It offers a strong five-day technical program focusing on HPC technological development and its application in scientific fields, as well as its adoption in commercial environments. 

ISC High Performance attracts engineers, IT specialists, system developers, vendors, scientists, researchers, students, journalists, and other members of the HPC global community. The exhibition draws decision-makers from automotive, finance, defense, aeronautical, gas & oil, banking, pharmaceutical and other industries, as well those providing hardware, software and services for the HPC community. Attendees will learn firsthand about new products and applications, in addition to the latest technological advances in the HPC industry.

Contact:

Nages Sieslack
Phone +49-621-180686-16
nages.sieslack@isc-group.com