Here we’ll keep you up to date with the latest news and perspectives on topics related to SC and the upcoming conference throughout the year. Check out the tags to explore more posts on the subjects that interest you.

Statement on Racial and Ethnic Diversity and Inclusion at the SC Conference
Recognizing Racism Recent events, including the horrific and unacceptable killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd as well as the protests of police actions that led to their deaths, have heightened our awareness of the ways systemic racism impacts us all. The SC Steering Committee recognizes that systemic and institutionalized racism have been blinding, leading …

How to Convince Your Supervisor That You Should Attend SC20
As a week-long event held in different cities every year, the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis, known as SC, provides one of the best opportunities for computer scientists, engineers, network experts, and other HPC researchers from academia, government, and industry to gather and assess the state of the field. The …

Computing4Change Student Profiles: 2020 Edition (Part 3)
Although SC20 and Computing4Change have shifted to virtual mode, we still want to share profiles of the incredible students and mentors that will be participating in the C4C program. They hail from 10 states and US Territories, and have a wide range of diverse experiences and life goals. Que’Aire Anderson, a C4C mentor, is studying …

Thoughts at the Threshold of the Exascale Era
An exaflop is an arbitrary milestone, a nice round figure with the kind of symbolic lure the four-minute mile once held. And as we know, there are three stages to these computing milestones that have occurred about once a decade. First comes peak exaflop performance, then a Linpack/TOP500 exaflop, and finally the one that counts …

Students@SC Embraces Virtual Format and Announces Student Programming at SC20
Students@SC is a platform for students to learn, connect, and grow professionally at the SC conference. The Students@SC cohorts (Student Volunteers, Student Cluster Competition, HPC Immersion, Computing4Change) will all be executed in a fully virtual manner. Students@SC will also be hosting a variety of additional events specifically targeting students! Students@SC Sessions Students@SC will host sessions …

The Collegiate Spirit Among Contributors and Volunteers Alike Supports the Colossal High-Speed Networking Achievements of SCinet
Kevin Hayden, SC20 SCinet Chair Senior Network Engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory What does it take to deliver a high-speed network for the SC Conference? A year of planning and tremendous support from a community of contributors. The SC Conference’s dedicated high-speed network, SCinet, celebrates its 30th year at SC20. …

Celebrating 30 Years of SCinet at SC20: Q&A with Former SCinet Chair Jackie Kern
Jackie Kern is a part-time consultant with the University of Illinois, providing leadership in data center assessment and support for the central infrastructure team after retiring from there in 2017. Jackie is a well-known leader in the SC community, with more than 20 years of experience as a volunteer. Her trajectory included being the first …

Computing4Change Student Profiles: 2020 Edition (Part 2)
Although SC20 and Computing4Change have shifted to virtual mode, we still want to share profiles of the incredible students and mentors that will be participating in the C4C program. They hail from 10 states and US Territories, and have a wide range of diverse experiences and life goals. Zoe Banks is a sophomore studying Computer …

Humans of SCinet: Q&A with SC20 Fiber Team Volunteer Annette Kitajima
Annette Kitajima, principle technologist at Sandia National Laboratories, is this year’s co-chair of the SCinet fiber team. Annette has been volunteering with SCinet for the past 15 years, and has led the fiber team for 11 of those years. Due to the virtual nature of SC20, we will not be building the cutting-edge SCinet infrastructure …

SC20 Keynote: From Deep Thoughts to (Destination) Earth: Climate Science in the Age of Exascale with Dr. Bjorn Stevens
SC20 is pleased to announce that our Keynote speaker is Prof. Bjorn Stevens of the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology. Prof. Stevens will discuss how exascale computing is impacting two opportunities that are changing the face of climate science. One arises from what exascale will enable; the other from what it will not. “Much like the Large …