SC20 Drops Hybrid Hopes, Goes All Virtual; HPC User Forum Events Cancelled

Two HPC industry conferences have announced their decisions to change the status of their events: one will go virtual, the other is cancelled.

SC20, which was to have been held in Atlanta, November 9-19, said last month it was working on plans for a hybrid in-person/virtual conference – now, according to conference General Chair Christine E. Cuicchi , this year’s edition will be all virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As we began exploring how to bring our conference to life in a digital environment, we had the option to go big or go home,” Cuicchi said in a blog of SC20, the industry’s largest annual event. “We’ve chosen to go big. The vast majority of our usual conference content will be shared during our virtual event in November.”

Information for attendees, exhibitors, presenters, students and media can be found on SC20’s Q&A page.

“We know the wait for information has been long, and we are eager to share our plans with you, while navigating the uncharted waters of event planning during a global pandemic,” said Cuicchi. “We thank you for your patience and support, and look forward to an exciting conference for our attendees and exhibitors.”

SC20 Chair Christine Cuicchi

Meanwhile, industry analyst firm Hyperion Research announced today that due to the coronavirus restrictions, the company has canceled its HPC User Forum meeting scheduled to take place this fall in Tuscon, AZ (September 8-10), along with the meetings that were to be hosted by HLRS in Stuttgart, Germany (September 28-29) and the University of Bristol in that UK city (October 1-2).

“We apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause, and we plan to reschedule these meetings in the same cities as soon as it’s safe to do that,” said Earl Joseph, CEO of Hyperion Research.  In the meantime, he said, Hyperion Research has been partnering with insideHPC to publish interviews with HPC User Forum Steering Committee members and other leaders in the worldwide HPC community.

The latest in the series interviews can be seen here (The Hyperion-insideHPC Interviews: Dr. Michael Resch Talks about the Leap from von Neumann: ‘I Tell My PhD Candidates: Go for Quantum’), more are on the way.