SC20 Is Also On for Now

The SC communications team issued an advisory and used the moment to highlight some of the ways HPC systems are assisting with coronavirus research.

The SC team has announced that the SC20 conference, the largest HPC conference in North America, is still on in spite of recent closures of other events. SC20, which is scheduled for November 15-20 in Atlanta, GA, is far enough in the future that the organizers feel the danger of the pandemic could be passed; however, like the ISC team, they are monitoring events carefully. According to a recent statement, “We encourage you to continue to submit to our various Technical Program, Students@SC Program, and SCinet Program events.”

The SC team also used the moment to highlight some of the ways in which HPC is being used right now in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. For instance:

  • Scientists are using UT Austin’s Wrangler supercomputer to model the spread of the coronavirus using data from 371 Chinese cities.
  • A team from UC San Diego is using the NCSA’s Blue Waters supercomputer to model the entire viral envelope, consisting of 160 million atoms, for the H1N1 flu virus in order to examine the binding sites for viral proteins, which could potentially lead to new vaccines.
  • The Summit supercomputer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory is simulating more than 8000 drug compounds to screen for those that could prevent the coronavirus from infecting host cells.

The SC20 communication team is encouraging other scientists in the HPC community to share news about ongoing virus- or pandemic-related research.