ISC25 – Some Thoughts

I’ve never been to ISC, or SC before. In fact, I’ve generally avoided conferences, summits and events, especially for HPC as they never seemed to have any participants from financial services.

And perhaps that was a mistake.

I’m writing this on a Friday morning from my hotel room, I have a full day of workshops to come still but I am already exhausted from the single day I spent at ISC yesterday. Those of you have been here since the opening day on Tuesday, I don’t know how you do it!

I’ve often said that HPC is a niche, but a broad niche, and nowhere has this ever been more evident to me than simply wandering around the exhibition hall at ISC. Vendors for everything from fans and cooling systems to recycling supercomputers. Parts of the HPC ecosystem I didn’t even know existed.

It was lovely (if a little overwhelming!) meeting so many new people too. If I haven’t already exchanged contact details or followed up as promised I apologise, please do remind me!

Most importantly though, I had come to ISC with a fairly specific goal (more on that next week 😉 ) in mind and meetings lined up to try and achieve it. I don’t think it would have been possible to even attempt that anywhere other than ISC or perhaps SC. The ability to line up meetings with a number of people and companies in such a short space of time is pretty awesome.

I’m looking forward to the workshops, but part of me does wish I was back home. I miss my wife and kids!