The HPCSE 2024 (High Performance Computing in Science and Engineering) conference, which hosted 85 participants, was held in the beautiful surroundings of the Beskydy Mountains from 20 to 23 May. IT4Innovations organised this event to bring together international experts from various fields, such as HPC, applied mathematics, numerical analysis, data analysis, machine learning, quantum computing, and advanced visualisation. The conference provided a platform for sharing experience and ideas and initiating new research collaborations.
Among the notable guests who accepted the invitation was Patrick E. Farrell, Professor of Numerical Analysis at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow at Oriel College, Oxford, who has been recognised by the London Mathematical Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, among others. At the conference, Farrell presented a paper on Reynolds-robust solvers for incompressible flow problems, to which he added: “My talk described a specialised preconditioner for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations that displays remarkable robustness with respect to varying the Reynolds number.”
Farrell shared his impressions of the HPCSE conference: “The standard of talks was very high. I greatly enjoyed the talks on developments in finite element software and domain decomposition solvers, as these are close to my research area. I was struck by the remarkable beauty of the visualisations described by Guillermo Marin. I also greatly enjoyed the talk on specialised interior point algorithms by Jacek Gondzio.”
Another invited guest was Jakub Mareček, who works at the Czech Technical University in Prague. Mareček's professional journey is rich in experience from industry and academic research around the world, including IBM Research. He presented a paper on Quantum Optimization: Potential, Challenges, and the Path Forward at the HPCSE 2024 conference and said: “Quantum computing is still a relatively speculative field. On one hand, it is a field where we cannot rule out exponential speedups compared to classical computing. On the other hand, it is a field the practical application of which presupposes the availability of hardware we do not yet have. So, we are trying to find applications where we can demonstrate the potential benefits of quantum computing first or conversely. These theoretical results would rule out the possibility of exponential speedup.”
He added to other lectures at the conference: “I have a soft spot for modern C++, and I was pleasantly surprised by how many of the toolkits presented use modern C++. Sometimes, one still thinks more of Fortran in the context of numerical mathematics. If numerical linear algebra comes in C++26, the toolkits will probably still have to change.”
The HPCSE 2024 conference attracted top experts from leading European research institutions. Moreover, it inspired and motivated students and researchers to join the growing and increasingly important community focused on high-performance and quantum computing. "The venue is fabulous: beautiful views, comfortable rooms, wonderful food, an excellent lecture theatre, and even better company. I strongly recommend it," said Patrick E. Farrell.
We have captured the ambience of the conference, including the poster session, in several photos, which you can find in the gallery below. We thank all participants and look forward to the next HPCSE conference in 2026.
