HAMBURG, Germany, May 16, 2024 – We are excited to announce Torsten Hoefler as the program chair for ISC 2025. Hoefler is a Professor of Computer Science at ETH Zurich and leader of the Scalable Parallel Computing Lab at the university. He is widely recognized for his expertise in combining artificial intelligence with high performance computing and is currently serving as the Chief Architect for Machine Learning at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center.
At yesterday’s memorable closing ceremony, Professor Michela Taufer, the Program Chair for ISC 2024, passed the baton of chairing the next ISC program to Hoefler. The upcoming event, ISC 2025, will mark a significant milestone as the 40th edition of the ISC High Performance event series. It is scheduled to be held once again in the vibrant city of Hamburg from June 10 to 13.
ISC 2024 was a resounding success. It welcomed over 3,400 attendees from 52 countries, including users, vendors, and providers from HPC and related domains. The event featured a diverse range of workshops, tutorials, and invited sessions. The keynotes addressed not only traditional HPC topics but also recent trends such as the convergence of HPC, AI, and quantum computing, and the expansion of Cloud HPC. This rich program set the stage for the exciting discussions and sessions we have planned for ISC 2025.
Connecting the Dots
In 2025, the community is set to gather under the theme “Connecting the Dots.” Two years ago, we initiated a discussion to acknowledge that HPC is at a crossroads and needs to look beyond exascale computing. The discussion at ISC 2024 branched into reinventing HPC by seriously considering methods to merge HPC with cloud computing, AI, quantum computing, and other applicable technologies.
Next year, with Hoefler at the helm, we aim to involve the growing number of stakeholders who depend on computing performance and data-intensive solutions. We will discuss how to enhance high performance computing to tackle the most daunting scientific and engineering challenges while ensuring the economies of scale are taken into account. ISC started as a 1986 seminar with 81 attendees and has now grown into Europe’s largest HPC conference, attracting over 3,000 attendees and exhibitors annually.
“The theme will be centered around making connections. This encompasses not only the connection between various fields such as HPC, AI, cloud, and quantum computing, some of which are currently being reinvented, but also the connections between people, companies, universities, and the next generation of HPC talent. Our field is essentially a science of connections – we connect transistors to build CPUs and memories, then connect those into compute nodes, and at the highest level, we connect those with HPC networking to each other to build clusters and supercomputers.
Just as we connect machines, we also need to connect people, even across generations, from undergraduates to senior policy and decision-makers in enterprises and the government,” said Hoefler.
A glimpse into the next year’s program topics will be available in September. In the meantime, you can visit the website for preliminary information.
About Torsten Hoefler
Hoefler’s research interests are centered around performance-centric system design, including scalable networks, parallel programming techniques, and performance modeling for large-scale simulations and artificial intelligence systems.
He is a proponent of the “Performance as a Science” approach and uses mathematical models of architectures and applications to create optimized computing systems. Prior to joining ETH Zurich, Hoefler led the performance modeling and simulation efforts for the first petascale supercomputer, Blue Waters, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Additionally, he played a crucial role in the development of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard, serving as the chair for the Collective Operations and Topologies working group. He has also made significant contributions to large-scale parallel learning systems.
A dynamic and accomplished scientist, Hoefler received his PhD in 2007 at Indiana University and held his first professor appointment in 2011 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed scientific conference and journal articles and authored chapters of the MPI-2.2 and MPI-3.0 standards.
Hoefler is the youngest recipient of the IEEE Sidney Fernbach Award, the oldest career award in high performance computing. He was also the first recipient of the ISC Jack Dongarra Early Career Award.
About ISC 2025
Join ISC High Performance 2025 in #ConnectingTheDots
ISC 2025 returns to the Congress Center Hamburg from June 10 – 13 next year for its 40th edition. Since its inception in 1986, it has been recognized as the world’s oldest and Europe’s must-attend event for HPC, high-performance data analytics, AI, and Quantum Computing professionals. The exhibition will showcase the latest developments in HPC, covering all significant advancements in system design, programming models, applications, machine learning, quantum computing, and emerging technologies.
