X Close

Centre for Advanced Research Computing

Home

ARC is UCL's research, innovation and service centre for the tools, practices and systems that enable computational science and digital scholarship

Menu

UCL attends SuperComputing 24

By dorothy.chung, on 29 January 2025

In November, UCL Advanced Research Computing (ARC) provided funding for select UCL staff to attend SC24, the 2024 running of the annual SuperComputing (SC) conference, hosted in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. UCL was one of 494 exhibitors, with a stand showcasing several novel High-Performance Computing (HPC) research initiatives taking place at UCL through posters and talks. Representatives from multiple departments beyond ARC attended, including Computer Science, Information Services Division, Chemistry, Biology, and the Bartlett, putting the diverse range of achievements of UCL’s interdisciplinary HPC community on display. 

Conference background 

SC is a preeminent conference for HPC, networking, storage, and analysis, held each November at a series of US conference centres. The event includes exhibits of emerging hardware and software technology, with exhibitors including government agencies, universities, and private companies. The participants range from students to senior-level researchers and HPC industry executives, and numerous awards are given for achievements in HPC innovation, research excellence and student projects. The 2024 running was the largest yet given the growing prominence of Artificial Intelligence and the associated enabling technologies. 

Photo of UCL stand at SC24

Photo of UCL stand at SC24

UCL was represented at the conference in 2024, with ARC as the sponsor of attendance. This allowed UCL’s HPC community to connect with a vast and international base of likeminded individuals as well as disseminating UCL’s research interests. The UCL stand was well attended and featured numerous talks at the booth over three days, as well as the presentation of research posters and a live model of a digital twin. 

UCL’s attendance and experience 

Given the variety of backgrounds represented amongst UCL’s attendees, the subjects shared covered numerous different topics from across the HPC spectrum. These aimed to highlight both UCL’s relevant programs and scientific computing research, promoting UCL and its staff’s standing in the field. ARC staff in particular shared seven posters and the majority of the booth talks, but also shared the display space with other departments’ presentations covering molecular simulation using supercomputers from UCL’s Physical Chemistry research and industry partners NVIDA, Quantum and DataVita.

Poster presentation at the UCL stand

Poster presentation at the UCL stand

UCL was one of few universities attending from outside of the US and thus stood out due to the larger scale of the booth in comparison to other non-US institutions. The booth drew questions from many attendees intrigued with how HPC is applied in academia and engaging with the research presented.  

Conference presentation

Conference presentation

Outlook

Following a successful showing at SC24, sights are set on improving the showing for SC25. Given the wealth of HPC research taking place all throughout UCL’s STEM departments and the great capacity for collaboration in academia, ARC hopes to showcase even more of UCL’s HPC research as well as potentially bringing in academics from other UK universities to improve the presence of institutions from abroad. UCL staff interested in HPC are encouraged to stay tuned for information on applications for attending next year’s conference. 

Comments are closed.