The October 2025 HPC-SIG meeting was hosted by the Hartree Centre at STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory, bringing together the UK HPC community for two days of technical discussion, operational insight, and networking in a historically significant computing location.
Day 1 opened with a welcome from the Hartree Centre team, setting the scene with an overview of Hartree’s mission, infrastructure, and evolving role in the UK research and innovation landscape. Talks on infrastructure resiliency, the deployment of the Coombs system, and operational perspectives on research data movement provided valuable insight into the realities of running large-scale, production HPC services. A lively lightning-talk session showcased a breadth of work across the community, including federated AI platforms, Slurm configuration experiences, and software stack design for new systems. The afternoon concluded with updates from Southampton, STFC RAL, and Norwich Bioscience Institute, highlighting developments in virtualised networking and GPU technologies.
Day 2 broadened the perspective, with sessions on quantum-centric supercomputing, the history of computing at Daresbury Laboratory, and lessons learned from powering down a hyperscale data centre. Attendees then had the opportunity to tour Hartree facilities, including visualisation demonstrations and the Campus Technology Hub, giving practical context to the preceding discussions. The final plenary session focused on federated access management for UK digital research infrastructures, reinforcing a recurring theme of collaboration and shared practice across institutions.
An optional afternoon workshop explored the UKRI Federated AI Application Container Platform and Registry project, featuring live demonstrations, case studies on container portability across GPU architectures, and an interactive fishbowl discussion driven by participant questions. This session highlighted both the technical challenges and the strong appetite for shared solutions in the AI and HPC ecosystem.
The meeting combined technical depth with open community discussion, reflecting HPC-SIG’s continued role as a forum for sharing operational experience, emerging technologies, and collective problem-solving across the UK HPC landscape. The Society thanks the Hartree Centre and all speakers and participants for making the event a success.