Insight into the world of HPC

We give an insight into our first participation in the International Industrial Supercomputing Workshop 2019

First of all, we would like to emphasize that High Performance Computing – in this depth of research – is a new area for SSC, where the world’s (!) leading managers of High Performance Computing Centers come together to talk freely about their latest research results and topics they are deepening.

As the workshop title says, the focus is on use cases from and research for industrial partners of HPC. And this is also how SSC got there: We, an industrial partner, with the task of connecting other industrial partners to HPC. Creating Connections has been our comfort zone for over 20 years, which also includes data exchange and data management. Of course we are familiar with some faces from our work in the Europe-wide Excellerat project, but here we also find people from all over the world (e.g. from Japan and the USA) who all face similar challenges.
These are not only technical challenges in terms of simulation precision (e.g. liquids, crash, airflow) or data security, but also national government decisions and daily challenges of the work culture. As one HPC manager explains: Working with SMEs is time-consuming, you have to gain trust and above all speak the same language or find a language that both sides understand. As industrial partners and SMEs, we can only agree with this and, with a smile on our faces, reflect it back one-to-one.

Besides the lectures, the networking and the insights gained there, the workshop was a great enrichment. Experienced nations are brought together, learn from others and advance joint project work.

With these words the last presentation of the first day was concluded by Bastian Koller (head of the HLRS): “We have to write success stories and spread the offers of the HPC centres. Because SMEs will not have the money to travel the world for HPC information and knowledge. It is our job to provide them with it as simply as possible. Because there is still so much untapped potential waiting to be discovered”.