FRANKFURT, Germany, April 15 — We are pleased to announce that we will be bringing five renowned experts in computational science to this year’s conference as part of our Distinguished Speaker series. Topics will include exascale computing efforts in the US, the next supercomputers in development in Japan and China, cognitive computing advancements at IBM, and quantum computing research at NASA.

In the first session on Tuesday, June 21, Dr. Paul Messina, Senior Strategic Advisor & Argonne Distinguished Fellow, will speak about “The Path to Capable Exascale Computing.” This topic has been the subject of study and analysis for almost ten years and Messina strongly feels that the time has come to mount a focused effort that applies the insights learned by those studies to build exascale systems. In his talk, Messina will present an overview of the efforts that are underway to establish a joint DOE-SC and NNSA project that will result in a capable exascale ecosystem and the scientific and engineering applications that can take advantage of it.

The second speaker, Prof. Dr. Yutaka Ishikawa, who is the Project Leader of the Flagship 2020 Project at RIKEN AICS, will deliver a talk about the new supercomputer that is being designed in Japan to replace the K computer. In this talk, titled “The Next Flagship Supercomputer in Japan,”Ishikawa will introduce the architecture of the machine and elaborate on how the system software is being developed with the help of international research collaborations. A heterogeneous operating system, Linux and a light-weight kernel is also being developed to build suitable runtime environments for applications.

The final speaker in the Tuesday session is Prof. Dr. Guangwen Yang, the Director of the National Supercomputer Center at Wuxi, China. Yang will be delivering a talk titled “The New Sunway Supercomputer System at Wuxi.” In the presentation, Yang will describe the hardware and software that will make up the Sunway system, along with some recently developed applications that are to be run on it. The new supercomputer is scheduled to be publicly announced this summer.

On Wednesday, June 22, in a fascinating talk titled “The Era of Cognitive Business: Applications of IBM Watson for Smarter Industries,” IBM Fellow Dr. Alessandro Curioni, will describe the rapidly emerging field of cognitive computing and how it is being applied for industry use. Curioni, who is the vice president and director of the IBM Research Lab in Zurich, will outline how the company’s Watson platform has evolved from its roots as a Jeopardy champion into a system capable of tackling real problems in healthcare, consumer goods, insurance and other commercial realms.

The 2016 Distinguished Speaker Series will end with an insightful talk into Quantum Computing at NASA: Challenge & Opportunities by Dr. Rupak Biswas, the Deputy Director of Exploration Technology at NASA Ames Research Center. Biswas will report on the research taking place at NASA’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (QuAIL) and the ways in which the technology can be applied to the space agency’s mission. In particular, he will provide an overview of NASA’s latest D-Wave quantum computing system and how it is performing on a set of selected application areas critical to the agency.

ISC Keynote Talks

The conference organizers will also present three compelling keynotes at this year’s conference. The opening keynote on Monday, June 20, will be delivered by Dr. Andrew Ng, Chief Scientist at Baidu, onHow HPC is Supercharging Machine Learning. Dr. Jacqueline H. Chen, a combustion simulation expert, and Prof. Dr. Thomas Sterling, a leading voice in HPC, will be speaking on Tuesday, June 21 and Wednesday, June 22, respectively. For full details on all three keynotes lined up for the week, click here.

Early-bird registration is open until May 11, and by registering before that date, attendees can save over 45 percent off of the Research, Industry and Student registrations.

About ISC High Performance

Now in its 31st year, 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 160 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, the PhD Forum, 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 High Performance