EU-ASEAN-Japan Symposium announces resumption of School for High Performance Computing

The continuation of the High Performance Computing School (HPC) in 2023, to be held in Jakarta, Indonesia, was announced during the EU-ASEAN-Japan Symposium at the Supercomputing Conference of Asia (SCA) 2023.

The school will be held in person and will once again host international luminaries to teach the fundamentals of HPC and its applications to critical domains to students from all ASEAN member states. For the first time, the head of the school will be a scientist from ASEAN.

In his presentation, Fabrizio Gagliardi, from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain, director of the HPC School in 2021 and 2022, commented: “After two years of successfully organizing and running the EU-ASEAN HPC School, I feel especially proud and happy to hand over the responsibility to a local scientist. This is the best proof of a long-term sustainability model made possible by the EU-funded E-READI project.”

The symposium was a step towards validating networks that are already thriving, as well as taking stock of the cooperation between the EU, ASEAN and Japan in the field of HPC.

The role of the High Performance Computing School

Henriette Faergemann, First Councilor for EU-ASEAN Digital Cooperation, opened the symposium and reported on the latest developments in HPC in Europe. He highlighted the benefits of supercomputers for creating digital twins of the Earth, the brain and the human body, and how the EU is stepping up cooperation with ASEAN and the wider region on sustainable digital connectivity and through Digital Partnerships. with Japan, the Republic of Korea and Singapore.

Zurina Moktar, Head of Science and Technology Division, ASEAN Secretariat, also spoke during the opening session, mentioning: “ASEAN hopes to address three main challenges that hinder HPC adoption in the region, namely, the high start-up and maintenance cost, the divergence of technical capacity and readiness to adopt HPC among ASEAN Member States, and the carbon footprint of HPC, which may affect ASEAN’s dual transition towards the digital and ecological”.

The EU and ASEAN empower the next generation of leaders in high-performance computing

The progress of science depends to a large extent on international collaboration, the exchange of experiences and research infrastructures. The symposium offered a platform to discuss the importance of data sharing and common scientific efforts to find solutions to global challenges. Experts in the field exchanged views on important topics such as high-speed data processing to address various challenges, from epidemics to global warming, food shortages and the decarbonisation of agriculture.

The symposium covered the discussion of the HPC School and its future in ASEAN, HPC use cases, including health threat management, and the celebration of the 50th anniversary of ASEAN-Japan cooperation.

In his closing remarks, Faergemann highlighted this year’s SCA theme, Sustainable Supercomputing for a Greener Future, as confirmation of the importance of HPC in responding to all the challenges facing the world today. He added that the EU, ASEAN and Japan work closely on both green and digital issues, and in all these fields, science has a crucial role to play, and HPC appears as a key instrument that will allow us to accelerate the achievement of significant results. .

ASEAN Economic Community Deputy Secretary General Satvinder Singh concluded the event by saying: “ASEAN, thanks to the commitment of Member States and long-standing partners such as the EU and Japan, aspires to establish the ASEAN Shared HPC Facility. We have to start bringing in the major players in the HPC market. I am convinced that more resources can be used efficiently through public-private partnerships.”

Last edition of the EU-ASEAN-Japan symposium

Following the success of its first iteration in 2021 and the interest generated by the second event in 2022, the EU-ASEAN-Japan Symposium once again took place at the Supercomputing Asia Conference, co-organized by several HPC centers and hosted by the National Supercomputing Center from Singapore.

The progress of science depends to a large extent on international collaboration, the exchange of experiences and research infrastructures

This year, original stakeholders from the ASEAN HPC Working Group, the European Union, the ASEAN Committee on Science, Technology and Innovation, and Japanese research institutions, submitted updates on their collaborations under the theme “Status EU -ASEAN-Japan Partnership on HPC” during a panel in which scientists, professionals and public authorities participated.

The symposium was supported by the EU-ASEAN Enhanced Regional Dialogue Instrument (E-READI) in coordination with the General Directorate for Communications, Content and Technology Networks (DG CNECT) of the European Commission and was chaired by Fabrizio Gagliardi, advisor main of E-READI.

Collaborator at ReportAsia