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Sunday, June 29, 2014

CHPC: It's time to think wildly different for a change! Let's design an energy-efficient HPC system!

Kruger National Park is home to Africa's Big Five: Lion
Leopard, Cape Buffalo, Rhino, and Elephant

South Africa's Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC) invites everyone to attend their 2014 National Meeting in The Kruger National Park. 


One of the world's largest wildlife reserves will offer the perfect backdrop for this year's program which will focus on the development of HPC systems and applications that leave little or no environmental footprint. Additionally, there's an emphasis on workforce development.


One driver behind CHPC's priorities is the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project: the most powerful telescope ever designed. The iconic endeavor is being installed in the extraordinarily “radio quiet” Karoo region of South Africa in the Northern Cape Province, and will include remote stations in SKA African partner countries such as Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Mauritius, Madagascar, Kenya and Ghana. Cooler-running systems and applications are needed for facilities located in remote, warm climates. Additionally, SKA and the projects that will grow from its roots need an indigenous workforce that's prepared for the future. 


The conference welcomes the contributions and expectations of policy-makers, multidisciplinary research communities, vendors, and academia through a series of contributed and invited papers, presentations and open discussion forums. Pre-conference tutorials will speak to the heart of HPC. The main session will include plenary talks and numerous parallel breakaway sessions. The content will be of interest to participants from all scientific domains, with an over-arching emphasis on the research priorities of stakeholders. 

2013 SADC Forum
Two administrative forums will convene during the conference: the Industrial HPC Advisory Forum and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Forum. It'll be exciting to learn how far SADC has come since the 2013 meeting where they discussed the development of a shared e-infrastructure for SADC member-states and their collaborators. With several points of presence in sub-Saharan Africa, they are laying the foundation for  a world-class research cyberinfrastructure in a proving ground that holds tremendous opportunity for multinational collaboration, innovation and discovery.  

The South African CHPC Team defended their title
at the ISC14 student cluster challenge
last week in Leipzig, Germany! Go SA!!
The e-infrastructure will not only provide SADC member states with additional computational resources, the community that uses it will lend diversity to the global HPC workforce. At the International Supercomputing Conference in Leipzig last week, the CHPC team won the student cluster challenge for the second year in a row! In December, the next generation will battle it out for a chance to compete at ISC15. 

With the unique location of this conference, space could be limited. Register today for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! 

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