Andrew Jones (hpcnotes)

Which football shape is best? The Microsoft + AMD Tuesday night reception at #Supercomputing has earned a sought-after reputation in recent years. For #SC26 we will be at Soldier Field, home to both shapes of football and now #HPC! Request tickets here: aka.ms/SC26reception

Observation: as people attend fewer meetings in full, instead using #AI to catchup later, previous assumptions like "we'll never get past slide 3 due to interruptions" are no longer valid, and it is possible to deliver more material in shorter time.

Bets for #Supercomputing26 weather? (h/t @hpcnotes.bsky.social) 1️⃣ I should have brought t-shirts 2️⃣ Light coat needed 3️⃣ White Walkers on the Lakeshore 4️⃣ Not going but wish I were 📊 Show results

Only 6 weeks to #SC26. Not close enough yet to predict which version of November weather Chicago we will get.

"Monday mop factor" This is the fraction of your Monday spent mopping up tasks hanging over from the previous week, or new tasks that jumped into your inbox at start of this week, before you can get on with your original hopes and plans for this Monday. #MondayMopFactor

A common half-joke/truth is "the world of #supercomputing advances one retirement at a time". But there's a necessary counterpart: "supercomputing advances one fresh emerging visionary at a time". How do you help ensure our #HPC community is fertile & welcoming for the latter?

I’ve been a bit lax about updating here on things … just me or is #HPC on Bsky still a thing? Anyway not even HPC related but thought I’d share. Especially for the techies out there that also like taking photos cloudhpc.news/vibe-coding-... @hpcnotes.bsky.social

My current vibe

Law 127 : Studiously carving out a sustained period of focus to complete a key technical project somehow directly invites the emergence of the necessary number of 'fires' required to fully overwhelm that focus time.

The world of #AIinfra ...

Everyone ...

Today's status

The two extra seats were snapped up within hours!

Not many guesses yet ... too difficult? Or not many #avgeeks among my #HPC/#AI friends? There’s a fun story related to my visits to each of those lounges, eg celebrities, oddity, laughable, … but those are for when we meet in person! All are real photos from my visits, not AI or marketing shots.

Accidentally scrolled my photos to around 10 years ago and found these 4 photos of airport lounges. So a quiz: Can you identify each of these lounges? (airport, airline, and specific lounge if there are multiple options)

Time for some #supercomputer fun! Reply to or quote this post adding your best AI generated image on theme of "supercomputing". No cheating wth real photos (who thought we'd ever say that!?) We/I will pick the top 3. No prizes for winners, merely satsisfaction. #HPC #AIinfra

We presented how Maia 200's Software-Define Dataflow delivers highest inference performance for production LLMs in Microsoft's fleet at #HotChips26 today. We also released the full paper with many details on arXiv: buff.ly/KJ8yMOp And a blog post: buff.ly/TsrPppe

Sunset photo taken this week

Last few places open for 2026 HPC/AI Leadership Training Institute at Barcelona Supercomputer Centre, Sept 7-10 www.bsc.es/news/events/... Everything (almost 😁) you need to know to effectively plan, buy & manage #HPC/#AI infra services. Plus networking with peers doing the same.

It’s gone a bit dark well before sunset

"Anyone can build a fast CPU. The trick is to build a fast system." - Seymour Cray, 1964 "Anyone can build a fast system. The trick is to build a usable, reliable, and affordable fast system!" - me 2026 #AI update - "and get it into production quickly" :-) #hpc #supercomputer #supercomputing

Observations on different social media platforms for #HPC / #supercomputing / #AIinfra engagements - numbers of views vs followers, subjective engagement rates, ... lnkd.in/p/edSb626s

Hopefully! www.marketwatch.com/story/micros...

Also, sadly there will be no HPC procurement/leadership tutorial at #SC26, so this #HPCLI hosted in Barcelona is your only opportunity for this learning this year.

"Anyone can build a fast CPU. The trick is to build a fast system." - Seymour Cray, 1964 "Anyone can build a fast system. The trick is to build a usable, reliable, and affordable fast system!" - me 2026 #AI update - "and get it into production quickly" :-) #hpc #supercomputer #supercomputing

Sunrise

I’m not telling you, I’m asking you (yes, you)! 1. What do you predict will be the biggest single #HPC or #supercomputing story at #SC26? 2. What will be the main theme or buzzword of the overall week?

How can benchmarking or Total Cost of Ownership models sometimes lead you to buy the wrong #HPC system or deliver #supercomputing that is sub-optimal for science impact? 2026 edition of the HPC Leadership Training Institute in Barcelona, 7-10 Sept.

Some places left at 2026 #HPC Leadership Institute Sept 7-10 Funding, procurement, cost & risk models, acceptance testing, #AIinfra & more. NB the tutorial won't be at #SC26 so this BSC edition is only chance for this learning until next year.

How can benchmarking or Total Cost of Ownership models sometimes lead you to buy the wrong #HPC system or deliver #supercomputing that is sub-optimal for science impact? 2026 edition of the HPC Leadership Training Institute in Barcelona, 7-10 Sept. www.linkedin.com/posts/andrew...

Some places left at 2026 #HPC Leadership Institute Sept 7-10 Funding, procurement, cost & risk models, acceptance testing, #AIinfra & more. NB the tutorial won't be at #SC26 so this BSC edition is only chance for this learning until next year. www.linkedin.com/posts/andrew...

Perspective: is not #AIslop - it is still human slop, i.e., content with questionable quality or accuracy - but simply that #AI helps the human to do so in much greater volume than before.

Deadline to apply for support to attend 2026 #HPC Leadership Institute is 27th July Help your journey to a #supercomputing leader with experience-based insights on procurement, cost/value models, technology evaluation, optimizing HPC/AI services, ... www.linkedin.com/posts/andrew...

😮

How can benchmarking or Total Cost of Ownership models sometimes lead you to buy the wrong #HPC system or deliver #supercomputing that is sub-optimal for science impact? 2026 edition of the HPC Leadership Training Institute in Barcelona, 7-10 Sept. www.linkedin.com/posts/andrew...

Are #sovereign, #sustainable, #cloud, #ai, etc all just hype and buzzwords, or do they really matter for #HPC? 2026 edition of the HPC Leadership Training Institute in Barcelona, 7-10 Sept. www.linkedin.com/posts/andrew...

Also, sadly there will be no HPC procurement/leadership tutorial at #SC26, so this #HPCLI hosted in Barcelona is your only opportunity for this learning this year.

Registration open for 2026 #HPC Leadership Institute, hosted by BSC in Barcelona, 7-10 Sept. Impartial training on #supercomputer funding, procurement, cost models, tech eval & more with @hpcnotes.bsky.social + @itsharveytime.bsky.social + @redoakconsulting.co.uk www.linkedin.com/posts/andrew...

Given that a USB-A stick only has two possible orientations - why does it always take at least three attempts for the stick to go into the socket?

In the category of “top frustrations”: Trying to get rid of a stubborn red notification dot that won’t clear from an app icon where the app already has all notifications marked as read

Yesterday was #Top500 day at #ISC26, today is #HPC ingenuity day - where #supercomputer centres & vendors alike exercise imaginations to claim how they are leaders in the world of #supercomputing - let each enjoy their moment of limelight 👏 www.linkedin.com/posts/andrew...

A lot of the focus on today’s latest #Top500 list will obviously focus on the new #1 system from China. But the other big story is that a single commercial user site (ENI) now has 2 #supercomputers in the top 10. I don’t think that has ever happened before? #HPc #ISC26

#Top500 FUD: Meaningless because not all #supercomputers are listed. - This has always been true. HPL doesn’t represent range of real applications. - No single benchmark ever will. #FP64 isn’t critical anymore. - It’s still heavily used in many/most production #HPC apps.