by: Senzo Mpungose, Projects and Operations Manager, University of the Witwatersrand
The adventure to Atlanta for the ART@SC24 Preconference and the SC24 Conference began with a test of patience—an airline mishap that saw my luggage taking its own detour. Thankfully, it made a dramatic entrance halfway through the trip, just in time to share in the discoveries and insights of a packed agenda. And what a journey it turned out to be!
ART@SC24 Preconference
The preconference kicked off with a visit to Georgia Tech, a hub of innovation that sets the bar for technological exploration. The tour of Georgia Tech’s Texas Instruments Makerspace, guided by the insightful and perceptive Assistant Director Stevie, was one key highlight. The tour was a goldmine for ideas and inspiration for me and my department, as we are in the midst of developing our own makerspace. Stevie’s advice on resource management, encouraging innovation, and guaranteeing accessibility to not only researchers but also undergrad students was priceless. Observing a fully functional makerspace in action provided a tangible picture of what ours may develop into: a location where researchers and students can realize their ideas from conception, to prototyping, and finally to production.
Another eye-opener was the tour of Georgia Tech’s data center. The design of this center defied all expectations for someone accustomed to conventional raised-floor data centers. It provided a better insight for us developing data centers through repurposing existing infrastructure. Rethinking the architecture and design of data centers will help me in improving our own data centers’ cooling, electricals and overall uptime.
SC24: Building Bridges and Breaking Barriers
SC24 wasn’t just a conference; it was a convergence of minds, technologies, and opportunities. One key highlight was meeting with Celestica, a donor organization keen to contribute equipment to institutions like ours. For over a year, logistical hurdles, communication breakdowns, and time-zone challenges had stalled the process which began at SC23. Attending SC24 became the bridge to overcoming these barriers, allowing us to schedule stakeholder meetings and plan a roadmap to ensure future collaborations don’t hit the same snags and hurdles. Being in the same room, being able to call relevant people, confirm relevant legal clauses, documents, and logistics etc. was very much needed in overcoming the barriers of the past year.
Networking sessions and evening events turned out to be just as pivotal. I connected with potential collaborators, suppliers, and donors, including Run:ai. Their solutions promise to revolutionize how we allocate GPU resources, making high-performance computing accessible to more researchers and students in our cash-strapped department. Imagine offering more computational power to more people without inflating costs—a game-changer for us.
SC24 Plenary: A Vision for the Future of HPC
The SC24 Plenary was nothing short of enlightening, offering a roadmap for the future of high-performance computing (HPC). From the use of HPC in movies, research, industry and space exploration, the plenary provided much needed clarity on where HPC is headed, how Quantum Computing integrates with it and how data center managers, like myself, can plan ahead. For those of us from developing countries, the emphasis on local capacity building and on-premises compute was a reassuring validation of our strategies. While cloud computing holds undeniable appeal, it was clear that local HPC expertise and infrastructure remain critical—especially in resource-constrained environments.
To me, the insights from the plenary underscored the vital work being done by Bryan and his CHPC team through the HPC Ecosystems project. Their efforts to develop HPC skills and capacity across Africa are not just commendable but essential. It was a reminder that the journey to technological self-reliance is a collective one, and their leadership continues to inspire us all.
STEM-Trek: Keeping Africa in the Conversation
A standing ovation is due to Elizabeth Leake and STEM-Trek for their steadfast dedication to guaranteeing Africa’s place at the HPC table. Every year, their work opens doors for African technicians and academics, enabling them to make significant contributions to the world of supercomputing. Each donor and sponsor they rally makes a tangible difference, enabling progress – African progress – one server, one researcher, one technician and one idea at a time.
Final Thoughts
More than just an assembly of HPC aficionados, SC24 served as a testing ground for concepts, partnerships, and solutions that would influence organizations much like ours. Every moment, from the Georgia Tech makerspace tour to the plenary’s ground-breaking discoveries, reaffirmed the need of gatherings like these and more so the importance of having Africa and underdeveloped countries represented and gaining insights and ideas to take home.
If your luggage disappears, take it as a sign that you are going to discover something much more significant. This advice is for anyone planning their first SC journey.
