Disclaimer: The author of this bite was a student volunteer in 2023 and a lead student volunteer in 2024. While she is not being paid to write about SC, she has previously received housing/registration/flights from the conference as part of volunteering. Any views and opinions expressed by the author are theirs alone, and are not necessarily endorsed by or shared by the SuperComputing Conference series.
The long standing joke in academia is that we’re all just going to quit and go make a ton of money in industry. But what kinds of opportunities are out there, and how do you get yourself seen in a difficult tech job market? Today, we’re talking about the SuperComputing (SC) conference series, the world’s largest conference on high performance computing, storage, and analysis. It’s where the annual Top500 list of supercomputers is announced, and is an amazing opportunity to learn, network, and get so much free swag you’ll need a checked bag.
The main body of the conference is what you might expect from an astronomy conference like AAS: plenary talks (the SC24 keynote was given by a NASA astrophysicist!), poster sessions, tutorials, and workshops. Some unique things to SC: paper sessions, where presenters give short talks about a paper they submitted for review and publication by the conference, and Birds of a Feather, which are more informal working group discussions. These are the “technical program” sessions, and are where you can hear about all kinds of cutting edge computing you don’t understand. Don’t stress too much if you don’t make it past the first few introduction slides. These people are domain experts in niche computing topics; I wouldn’t expect them to understand any of our science talks if the roles were reversed.
Each SC has a dedicated app containing the full schedule, and you can save talks that sound interesting to a personal schedule. I recommend attending anything that sounds remotely related to your research as well as some talks that just sound weird or interesting. I have made multiple research breakthroughs because of things I learned at SC. In talking to another volunteer at SC23 I discovered neural architecture searches, which I then used to optimize a network I was developing for simulation analysis. AI and ML tools have become an increasing focus in astronomy and in the work presented at SC, so there will certainly be something new and applicable to your research. Astronomy can tend to live in a bubble of familiar techniques, and SC is a great place to branch out.
Talks at SC24 that were interesting for astronomers (i.e. me):
- AI and Scientific Research Computing with Kubernetes
- Programming Novel AI Accelerators for Scientific Computing
- Compression for Scientific Data
- AI4S: 5th Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Scientific Applications
- The 10th International Workshop on Data Analysis and Reduction for Big Scientific Data
- High Performance Python for Science at Scale
- HPC Outreach: Mastering the Art of Science Communication
- Creating Inclusive Scientific Communities in the Information Age: Can Equity Democratize Data-Intensive Research, from Experimental Facilities and HPC to Scientific Discovery?
- HPC for Physics and Material Science
- Computing at the Edge: HPC and AI Supporting Recent U.S. Space Missions
- …and many many more depending on what your work is on! You can check out the conference program for more.
Unlike AAS, there’s also a big corporate presence, with the massive Exhibit Hall with hundreds of booths handing out swag and trying to get you to use their version of XYZ tool. Be polite, chat and ask them about their work, and then take that stuffed gorilla. You’ve earned it. Some highlights from the exhibit floor: Groq brought a llama to the Denver Convention Center, Microsoft’s coffee robot, and the guy who played The Mountain on Game of Thrones breaking a world record in powerlifting. There’s also a job fair; you can digitally submit your resume through the SC job fair website and/or meet with recruiters until your face hurts from politely smiling.
Probably the most important thing for our readers: the student program at SC is incredibly well done and provides massive opportunities for very early career researchers (undergrads and grads!). There’s a general student program anyone can attend, with talks on things like resume writing and career pathways, and mentoring opportunities. The lead volunteers run Guided Interest Groups (GIGs) where you can go to a curated set of talks with a small group. For astronomers, there’s a Scientific Applications of HPC GIG that I highly recommend**. The HPC Immersion program is also a way to attend the conference as a beginner in HPC, and provides more structure to what sessions you’ll attend.
There’s a dedicated student HQ where they typically offload the leftovers from the incredibly well-catered snack breaks. There’s a Slack to find people to go with to the not official to the conference off-site networking events that various corporations throw – in previous years companies have rented out Meow Wolf and booked Jimmy Eat World for a concert. Again, these events are not official, but they definitely are something to check out.
If you’re an undergraduate and are more interested in the computational side of things, they host the Student Cluster Competition (SCC) and IndySCC, where university teams spin up and benchmark small clusters built by students. This starts at the university level, so check in with your department to see if you have a team or could start one.
I saved the best for last: the Student Volunteers program (applications open Feb 14th 2025, close May 31st 2025). In exchange for working volunteer shifts, which usually entail monitoring room capacities, running errands, and passing the microphone during Q&As, you get discounted registration, a free hotel room, free flights*, and a sweet jacket. There’s also an option to apply to volunteer for SCinet and help build the massive custom wifi network the conference needs to support its activities. The registration category for being an SVOL also grants you entry to the Technical Reception, which in past years has been at the Denver Art Museum and the Georgia Aquarium.
With over 18,000 attendees at SC24, the SuperComputing conference is the place to be if you want a career in high performance computing. SC25 is scheduled for Nov 16-21 2025 in St. Louis Missouri.
* The status of the free flights seems to vary from year to year; they have stated that they intend to cover them for SC25.
** Disclaimer: This author ran the SciApps GIG at SC24 and is certainly biased.
Astrobite edited by Karthik Yadavalli
Featured image credit: SC25 Official Branding Logos