Hartree Centre on tour | SC24 Round up

With over 17,500 attendees, the Hartree Centre explored the world’s largest international supercomputing conference, SC24. Science and Business Engagement Officer Stella Elena Alexandrova shares her account of the conference, following the Hartree Centre team’s activities across the week. 

We hit the ground running at the Supercomputing Conference 2024 (SC24) with an amazing turnout for our scalable algorithms’ workshop. Co-hosted for the 14^th consecutive year by Vassil Alexandrov, our Chief Science Officer and Christian Engelmann from Oak Ridge National Labs, exploring state-of-the-art computing architectures and novel computing approaches for high-performance computing (HPC). We discussed the latest advantages of these technologies, ranging from the most effective way to use exascale computers to the range of applications for neuromorphic computing, which is a type of computing inspired by how the human brain works. In this workshop, we heard how technologies like exascale computing will be key to solving grand challenges such as climate change, drug discovery, and sustainable energy. 

“It is really great to help organise this workshop as we can hear about the latest advances in scalable algorithms for Heterogeneous Systems and seeing the evolution of scalable algorithms and that there is a really exciting opportunity to efficiently solve large-scale challenges like generating sustainable energy.”

Christian Engelmann

Day 2 started out strong as Nitin Sukhija from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania and Nia Alexandrova, our Training Manager, co-hosted an HPC Training and Education workshop. They brought together global experts to discuss shared challenges in HPC training and their innovative solutions to HPC training challenges. The workshop created a space for impactful discussions, lightning talks, and demos, fostering international collaboration in HPC education. We heard about the importance of HPC training and building a global community to support HPC education. 

“For the eleven years we have run this workshop, we have provided a platform to solve common training challenges and helped create a community where we can share resources and work together on using emerging technologies for education and training.” 

Nitin Sukhija, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania

“The reason we do this workshop is to build up the HPC training and education community and allow people who are at the start of their careers to network and share ideas with training specialists. We opened discussions about training styles by sharing how we have designed our online and in person training courses at the Hartree Centre to support industries ranging from healthcare to automotive.” 

Nia Alexandrova  

In the evening, I rejoined other Hartree Centre team members at the opening gala of the exhibition. They had spent the day attending workshops and tutorials, delving into the latest advances in computing architecture, quantum computing and innovative approaches to optimise simulations for industrial applications from accelerating drug discovery to decarbonisation of the economy. 

We located our shared exhibition booth space with our Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) colleagues from Scientific Computing and the National Quantum Computing Centre. It’s always rewarding to see the huge variety of STFC’s projects and programmes demonstrated visually through posters, animations and video content on the booth. Some of the highlights for us this year included our collaboration to advance fusion energy with the UK Atomic Energy Authority and our recent projects using quantum computing to accelerate drug discovery. 

The first two images show the MOF around the convention centre and the third image shows some of the simulations displayed as a part of the Art of HPC exhibition.

On Day 3 saw the opening of the first ever Art of HPC exhibition where SC24 showcased work that explores the intersection of art and HPC through captivating models and renders. Our Visualisation Software Engineer Kelly Hanifin exhibited a dynamic 3D rendering of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs). This porous material acts like a lattice that is ideal for capturing and storing CO₂. The visualisation of this unique material shows just how these advanced technologies can help address grand challenges like climate change and bring us closer to net-zero targets. It was really exciting to see this simulation as a part of the Art of HPC display showcased across the conference centre in Atlanta. The Art of HPC underscores the rapid evolution of computing capabilities in being able to visualise the breakthroughs in fields from material discovery to sustainable innovation. 

At the SC24 poster session, we showcased how the Hartree Centre is helping industries explore and adopt quantum computing by addressing optimisation challenges between quantum and classical computing. Quantum Software Engineer Francesca Schiavello’s poster, ‘Evolving a Multi-Population Evolutionary-QAOA on Distributed QPUs,’ highlights how we are working to advance quantum computing technology, and was presented at the poster session by Stefano Mensa, our Advanced Computing and Emerging Technologies Group Leader.   

This year, as a part of the young researcher’s mentorship programme, our team mentored Zheyu Wen from the University of Texas on how to continue their professional development and build a research career. 

“I had a great talk with the team, we discussed career paths, how to develop good research topics and how to make our research impactful. I obtained a lot of new insights on how to build my future path!” 

Zheyu Wen

On Day 4, we continued with a jam-packed schedule as Robin Kennedy-Reid, one of our Research Software Engineers, gave a presentation about how he helped aeronautics company Perpetual Labs to automate their workflow. It was great to see how the presentation showcased a solution to a common challenge in deploying compute-intensive tasks, leading to an opportunity to work with other organisations facing similar challenges. 

“It was really exciting to present my work at SC24 and to connect with the wider DevOps community by sharing how we were able to deploy compute-intensive tasks. After my talk, I spoke with several people who think our work can resolve similar problems they are facing by deploying HPC tasks from GitLab.” 

Robin Kennedy-Reid

Our SC24 journey concluded with Tim Powell, our Automotive Lead, hosting a Birds of a Feather session, “Next-Gen Battery Simulation at Exascale”, which brought together researchers and industry leaders to tackle challenges in battery design and simulation. Nuno Nobre, one of our Computational Scientists spoke as a part of the session about some of the challenges that the transportation sector is facing with battery design and simulation. The talk offered a fresh perspective about how cutting-edge technologies optimise battery design, as well as fostering connections that could lead to exciting partnerships in the future. 

“We co-organise our Birds of a Feather with our Department of Energy colleagues so we could talk about the current and upcoming challenges in battery simulation that the transportation sector are facing. We were able to discuss a range of applications and objectives with a special focus on the safety and durability of tomorrow’s devices. We’re already looking forward to building this community next year!” 

Nuno Nobre

SC24 highlighted the Hartree Centre’s ongoing efforts to drive innovation in HPC, AI, and quantum computing. From showcasing impactful projects to fostering collaboration across industries and academia, and how we are helping a range of organisations to explore and adopt emerging technologies. Stay connected with us by joining our newsletter or following us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X for updates on our work!