NIC Symposium 2012 in Retrospect

In 1987, the Höchstleistungsrechenzentrum (HLRZ) was established by Forschungszentrum Jülich, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, and GMD (Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Daten- verarbeitung) to support the super- computer-oriented simulation in natural and engineering sciences. In 1998, when GMD left the HLRZ, it was renamed John von Neumann Institute for Computing (NIC), and in 2006 GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung joined NIC as a contract partner.

The core task of NIC is now the peer-reviewed allocation of supercomputing resources to computational science projects from Germany and Europe. The NIC partners support supercomputer-aided research in science and engineering through a three-way strategy: • Provision of supercomputing re- sources for projects in science research and industry
• Supercomputer-oriented research and development by NIC research groups in selected fields of physics and natural sciences.
• Education and training in all areas of supercomputing by symposia, workshops, summer schools, seminars, courses and guest programmes for scientists and students.

The NIC symposium is held every two years to give an overview of activities and results obtained by research groups receiving computing time grants on the supercomputers at Jülich through the John von Neumann Institute for Computing (NIC). The 6th NIC Symposium took place at Forschungszentrum Jülich from 7 to 8 February 2012 and was attended by about 130 scientists. The participants were welcomed by Prof. Bachem (Board of Directors of Forschungs- zentrum Jülich), who gave an overview of recent developments in the European supercomputing landscape, and by Prof. Lippert (JSC), who presented new perspectives in supercomputing. Since this symposium also marked the 25th anniversary of the founding of the HLRZ, Prof. Binder (University of Mainz), who is one of its founding fathers and currently serves as chairman of the NIC scientific council, gave a historical overview of HLRZ/NIC. In particular, he emphasized that HLRZ/NIC's structure and peer-review system served as a model for other supercomputing organizations. In the scientific programme, recent results in various research fields, ranging from astrophysics to turbulence, were presented in 14 invited talks and 60 posters. Both, attendance and number of poster presentations were a new record high. Ample discussion sessions after the talks and the poster session gave the participants rich op- portunities to exchange ideas and methods in an interdisciplinary setting. The detailed programme, talks, posters, pro- ceedings, and pictures are available at http://www2.fz-juelich.de/nic/ symposium/symposium-2012.html

Figure 1: Participants of the NIC Symposium 2012

• Walter Nadler
Jülich Supercomputing Centre

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