NI-HPC User Conference 2025
About this event
The Northern Ireland High-Performance Computing User Conference brings together both existing and potential users of HPC in Northern Ireland. It will be of particular interest to users considering the transition of their software and research to the facility to accelerate and improve their research. The current program has two keynote International speakers and several talks from users in neuroscience, neurotechnology, precision medicine, pharmacy, hydrogen safety, and physics.
Date: 4 November 2025
Time: 9:15 - 4:30
Location: Queen's University, Belfast, Riddel Hall
Agenda
09:15 Arrival and registration. Refreshments.
09:45 Welcome and outline goals for the day: David Smyth, Director, NI-HPC
10:00 The Future of HPC in Northern Ireland: Paul Calleja, Director of Research Computing, University of Cambridge
10:20 Panel Discussion
10:50 Structure and Function in Brain-based Recurrent Neural Networks: James McAllister, PHD Computational and Theoretical Neuroscience, Ulster University
11:05 Research presentation: (TBC)
11:20 Coffee break & Poster session
11:40 Sustainable Computing: Vaughan Purnell, Research Computing Manager, NI-HPC
12.00 From Exascale to Sustainable Scale: The Energy Cost of Computing: Tania Malik, Director of @HPC Nexus Lab, Assistant Professor, Technological University Dublin
12:10 Living Lab: Hans Vandierendonck, Professor of High-Performance and Data-Intensive Computing at Queen's University Belfast
12:25 Title TBC: Michela Black, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Computing, Engineering & Intelligent Systems, Principle Investigator for AI Collaboration Centre (AICC)
12:50 WHPC Lunch and WHPC dessert club (user poster session)
13:50 The landscape of AI and HPC (Isambard-AI): Dr Sadaf Alam, Director of Advanced Computing Strategy, University of Bristol
14:10 Positive Impact in the Workplace: Cara Quinn, Stellar Impact, Mindset Coach.
15:00 Lightning talks - research posters
15:10 Coffee break & Poster session
15:40 Powering Wearable BCIs for Rehabilitation, Assistance, and Diagnosis: The Critical Role of High-Performance Computing: Damien Coyle, UKRI Turing AI Fellow and Director of The Bath Institute for the Augmented Human
16:00 HPC use in Sustainable Digital Fashion Design: Suhasish Basak, PHD Researcher, Ulster University
16:15 Research presentation: (TBC)
16:30 Concluding remarks.