FRANKFURT, Germany, July 1 — ISC Group, the organizers of ISC High Performance held a very successful conference last week, drawing 3,092 attendees from 53 countries to the annual high performance computing forum, exceeding all previous attendance records. The conference and exhibition were held in Frankfurt, Germany from June 19 – 23.

The ISC exhibition hall was a very busy place from June 20 – 22, hosting 146 leading HPC vendors and research organizations from around the world. Twelve student teams were also on the show floor competing in the fifth annual HPCAC–ISC Student Cluster Competition.

It was equally exciting to see over 420 members of the Asian HPC community partake in this year’s conference program, reflecting a 10 percent increase of Asian attendees. The highest number of attendees came from northern and central Europe, followed by North America.

A video summarizing the three-day conference is now available on YouTube. High-quality images of the conference and exhibition are also available for download at Flickr. Conference proceedings will be made available to attendees this week. If you are interested in the ISC 2016 research papers, you can download them for free until July 15 through the ISC 2016 program page. Click on the Springer’s Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series link displayed on the ISC program page to qualify for the free download. 

Machine Learning Theme

The topic of machine learning was a constant theme throughout the five-day event, highlighted by the Andrew Ng’s opening keynote on Monday. As Baidu’s Chief Scientist, Ng drives the R&D effort there, much of which is centered on improving their search capability through deep learning and other types of advanced analytics. In his keynote address, which attracted more than 800 attendees, Ng traced the history of machine learning and discussed its intersection with HPC. Conference-goers were also treated to numerous sessions and panel discussions on the topic, which drew large crowds.

The 2016 Workshops 

Over 170 experts presented to 576 attendees in 21 workshops, which consisted of 9 full-day and 12 half-day presentations and panel discussions. Held under the leadership of co-chairs, Dr. Bernd Mohr and Dr. Michela Taufer, the workshops covered a wide range of topics in hardware, software and applications for extreme scale computing, data analytics, cloud computing, international collaboration, and women in HPC.

The Fifth ISC-HPCAC Student Cluster Competition 

This year’s competition was spectacular in terms of size and the global interest it received.  The South African team won first place, pushing last year’s number one team, Tsinghua University, into second place. In 2015, Tsinghua had captured the trophy from the South African team, which had won the top spot in the two prior years.

Here are the complete results:

• 1st Place: Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), South Africa
• 2nd Place: Tsinghua University, China
• 3rd Place: Shanghai Jiao Tong University
• Highest LINPACK:  Huazhong University of Science & Technology
• Fan Favorite: UPC Barcelona Tech

The three-day competition was co-organized with the HPC Advisory Council. If you are interested in applying for the 2017 competition, please contact the organizers at [email protected].

ISC 2017

Next year, ISC High Performance will be held from June 18– 22 in Frankfurt under the leadership of general co-chairs, Martin and Thomas Meuer and program chair, Prof. Dr. Jack Dongarra. For more information, please go to the 2017 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.

Over 400 hand-picked expert speakers and 150 exhibitors, consisting of leading research centers and vendors, will greet attendees at ISC High Performance. A number of events complement the technical program including Tutorials, the TOP500 Announcement, Research Paper Sessions, Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) Sessions, the Poster Sessions, Exhibitor Forums, and Workshops.

ISC High Performance is open to engineers, IT specialists, system developers, vendors, scientists, researchers, students, journalists, and other members of the HPC global community. The exhibition attracts 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.

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Source: ISC Events