HPCAC-AI 2019 – That’s a Wrap!

This year, the HPC-AI Advisory Council successfully held its third annual Perth conference in partnership with the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre.

The two-day conference was a collaborative symposium, bringing together over 120 attendees, international industry luminaries and experts from a wide variety of scientific disciplines. The conference was an enlightening experience of lively debate, learning and insight with discussions ranging from the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on high-performance computing (HPC), to architectural challenges for the convergence of big data analytics.

Pawsey’s Presence

Pawsey welcomed participants with Pawsey Head of Data, Mark Gray and Supercomputing Applications Specialist, Mark Cheeseman, opening daily conference proceedings. Pawsey staff presented throughout the conference on a variety of topics. Mark Gray also participated in a joint session with Bioplatforms Australia, another NCRIS facility, sharing insights on the future of HPC and the growing needs of communities such as researchers working on life science. As part of the conference, Pawsey hosted its second international symposium “Systems Monitoring and Application Benchmarking” organised by Mark Cheeseman, included discussion about Singularity, vendor perspectives on procurement processes, HPC in the cloud and more.

Other supercomputing centres like the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), the Singaporean National Supercomputing Centre (NSC) and the Australian National Computing Infrastructure (NCI) were represented. NCI delivered the closing addresses focus in their recent procurement experience and its outcome.

The conference included contributed talks from established international industry leaders like Microsoft, Cray, Sylabs, Amazon Web Services and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. University research teams also participated at this year’s conference, with The Ohio State University, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia and Curtin University presenting their findings on best practices. Monash University and The University of Western Australia presented as part of the Community Catalysts agenda.

Not only an opportunity to share expertise and explore emerging trends, but there was also plenty of time for networking in between these big-idea tutorial and discussion sessions. Participants had the opportunity to speak to keynote speakers and presenters throughout the conference, establishing new industry connections.

Done for Another Year

To wind down and reflect on two-days of innovative contributed talks, cutting edge-technology discussions, breakthrough works and emerging trend exploration, participants enjoyed a final sundowner hosted by @DownUnder Geosolutions. In this relaxed, warm atmosphere, the conference came to a successful conclusion for another year, leaving great promise for HPC-AI Conference 2020.

Presentations will be soon available on the HPC AI AC website and videos will be shared via HPC AI AC youtube channel.

 

Prof DK Panda from The Ohio State University

Prof DK Panda from The Ohio State University

Rob Farber during his session 'AI is impacting HPC Everywhere'

Rob Farber during his session 'AI is impacting HPC Everywhere'

Dr Melanie Johnston Hollit, New Approaches to Scaling Wide-Field Imaging Algorithms to SKA-Levels Curtin University

Gin Tan, Senior HPC Consultant at Monash University, presented about HPC in the cloud

Gin Tan, Senior HPC Consultant at Monash University, presented about HPC in the cloud