On 24-27 September, CERN hosted the 2019 annual conference of the Intel eXtreme Performance Users Group (IXPUG). The event was organised by CERN openlab, a unique public-private partnership CERN runs with leading ICT companies to accelerate the development of computing technologies needed by the LHC research community.

IXPUG is an independent users group. Its mission is to provide an environment for the free exchange of information, with the goal of enhancing the usability and efficiency of scientific and technical applications running on advanced computing systems that make use of Intel architecture.

The 2019 IXPUG annual conference addressed a wide array of topics related to the adoption and deployment of state-of-the-art data-processing technologies and techniques, with a view to achieving optimal application execution. The event provided an open forum, through which industry experts could share best practices and techniques for maximising software efficiency. Participants shared their experience working with these technologies, and learned from others in the field.

The conference was organised around key themes associated with high-performance computing, data analytics, artificial intelligence (machine and deep learning), cloud computing, and more. As well as presentations in CERN’s ‘Globe of Science and Innovation’, there were also hands-on tutorials and workshops. For instance, attendees at these sessions discussed challenges related to application performance and scalability, including application tuning on high-performance computing systems.

Participants at the event also had the chance to learn more about CERN and its work. Visits were organised to the CERN data centre and the first accelerator built at CERN, the Synchrocyclotron.

“We selected CERN as host for this year’s Annual Conference because of its outstanding scientific, technical and social environment – a truly unique place in the world. The expertise of the people working in CERN openlab was instrumental in making the conference a success,” says Thomas Steinke, IXPUG president and head of the supercomputing department of Zuse Institute Berlin.

“CERN and the high-energy physics community strongly rely on computing technology to support their ambitious research goals,” says Alberto Di Meglio, head of CERN openlab. “We are proud to be part of an expert community like IXPUG to share experience, learn from each other and contribute to advancing science and technology together.”

Presentations from the conference can be accessed via the event page: http://cern.ch/go/vBB9.