Now Entering its 20th Year, TOP500 List to Be Focus of Three Sessions at ISC’12

What began as a small statistics project in 1993 is today one of the most widely watched announcements in the high performance computing community. To mark the occasion, the TOP500 List of the world’s most powerful supercomputers will be featured in three sessions at the 2012 International Supercomputing Conference to be held June 17-21 at the Congress Center Hamburg.

To kick things off, Michael Feldman of HPCwire and Addison Snell of Intersect360 Research will interview the four TOP500 editors — Hans Meuer, Erich Strohmaier, Jack Dongarra and Horst Simon — for their popular Soundbite podcast.

In keeping with tradition, the presentation of the latest TOP500 List will be a featured part of the ISC’12 opening session on Monday, June 18. Strohmaier, one of the founding editors of the list, will discuss the 39th list, providing the latest rankings as well as trends reflected over the past several lists. One of the top questions going into the session is whether the K Computer at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe, Japan, can maintain its number one position.

On Wednesday, June 20, HPCwire is sponsoring an “ISC Think Tank” session on TOP500 – 20 Years Later. Now in its second year, the ISC Think Tank Series continues with its dynamic discussion format with three panel sessions featuring some of HPC’s leading thought leaders from the analyst, industry and end-user communities.

Now in its 27th year, ISC’12 is expected to draw 2,400 attendees from academia, research institutions and industry around the world. An estimated 160 leading organizations will showcase their products and research in the ISC exhibition. For more information on the conference, visit www.isc12.org.

About ISC’12

Now in its 27th year, ISC is the world’s oldest and one of the most important conferences for the HPC community, offering a strong five-day technical program with a wide range of expert speakers and exhibits from leading research centers and vendors. A number of events complement the technical program, including Tutorials, Workshops, Top500 Announcement, Research Paper Sessions, Birds of a Feather (BoF) Sessions, Research Poster Session, Think Tank Series, Analyst Crossfire, Exhibitor and Start-up Forums, and the popular Hot Seat Sessions in a new format featuring leaders from industry and research centers. The conference has experienced tremendous growth over the last few years, with an estimated 2,400 participants from around the world expected to convene in Hamburg, June 17 – 21.

Early bird registration that enables savings up to 25 percent for ISC’12 will end May 15, 2012. In addition to the reduced rates, a number of one-day options for both the program and exhibition are available.