Meeting convened in the fantastic West Hub in sunny Cambridge. The meeting was very well attended by over 50 delegates from across UK institutions, as well as the same number of online participants. A wide range of topic were covered with a focus on the bleeding edge of HPC at the University of Cambridge and the DAWN data centre. The meeting was a great success and we would like to thank all the speakers and delegates for their contributions, as well as the University of Cambridge for hosting us.
Day 1
Welcome and Chair’s Business
Important notes about incorporating the SIG via charitable status and open executive positions. Please contact the chair if you are interested in joining the committee: communications@hpc-sig.org.uk.
Cambridge host site presentation – Wojciech Turek, University of Cambridge
Panel Discussion: Research Data Storage management and cost recovery models in UK Academia in 2025 – Polly Eccleston, University of Bristol
Thank you to our panellists for their contributions and Polly for chairing the session!
Lightning talks
- Computational Abilities Knowledge Exchange (CAKE) – Marion Weinzierl, ICCS, University of Cambridge see slides
- Toward a new CCP for Arts, Humanities, and Culture research (CCP-AHC) – Eamonn Bell, Durham University
- STEP-UP and SCALE-UP: Growing support for digital Research Technical Professionals regionally and nationally – Jeremy Cohen, Imperial College London
Filesystems for AI workloads. Linux and the IO Bottleneck – Gwen Dawes, University of Cambridge
How to configure Lustre for AI workloads and get the most out of your Lustre filesystem.
Transforming a Modern Data Centre for AI Workloads – Astrid Scott-Bennett, University of Cambridge
The infrastructure and architecture of the data canter hosting DAWN.
Since when did we become classical computing? – James Thorne and Danny Hindson, STFC – National Quantum Computing Centre
What it takes to simulate quantum computers on classical computers. see slides
Day 2
DAWN data centre tour
Dynamic Login Node Resource Control and Enforcement with Arbiter V3 – Christopher Hall, University of Warwick
How to enforce resource limits on login nodes whist educating users about the impact of there actions.
Interrogating the Slurm Database – Sam Gallop, Norwich Bioscience Institute
How to leverage the Slurm database to help users get the most out of your HPC system (https://github.com/NBI-Research-Computing/slurm-reporting). see slides
The DAWN of Federated HPC Access at Cambridge – Deepak Aggarwal, University of Cambridge
How has the challenge of federated access to DAWN been overcome? How can we make it easier for users from, consortium institutions, industry to access DAWN? see slides
Closing remarks
