Laboratoire d'Annecy de Physique des Particules
Science

500 professionals trained in HPC at the 2024 Gray Scott School

The second edition of the Gray Scott summer school took place from 1 to 12 July at the LAPP in Annecy, as well as in 12 satellite sites and online.

Organised by LAPP, with the support of ESCAPE, the European Science Cluster of Astronomy & Particle Physics ESFRI Research Infrastructures, and in collaboration with the CC-FR Competence Centre, the school brought together 500 participants, some of them attended the school in person in several French-speaking locations, while others took part in an online streaming session.

This year’s Gray Scott Summer School was entirely free of charge and focused on developing skills in High-Performance Computing (HPC), with a programme dedicated to programming and optimisation on heterogeneous architectures.

An intensive and flexible programme

The 2024 edition of the Gray Scott Summer School (known as Gray Scott Reloaded) provided two weeks of training for 500 students in optimising computing on different types of hardware (CPU, GPU). The courses covered generic optimisation methods applicable to all types of hardware, and the different libraries, technologies and languages available to achieve the best possible performance.

Check out the 2024 Gray Scott Summer School programme

From LAPP in Annecy, the 9 expert trainers from CNRS, INRIA and other institutes offered two weeks of interactive courses and practical exercises. People following the school from the satellite sites or online were able to build an on-demand programme, attending classes according to their needs and availability.

The Satellite Sites, located in several French cities (Paris, Marseille, Toulouse, Reims, etc.) as well as in Belgium, Morocco and Senegal, enabled participants to follow the courses in a stimulating and cohesive environment, as well as benefiting from access to significant computing resources to complete the exercises!

A Discord server was set up to allow all participants to ask questions and exchange live with the instructors. All the courses were broadcast live on the LAPP YouTube channel, with an average of 400 views per day, and will be available on the LAPP and CC-FR YouTube channels.

Watch the replay of the courses (in French)

An environment full of exchanges and discoveries for participants at LAPP in Annecy

The school was a very special experience for the students who attended the in-person courses at LAPP in Annecy. During the two weeks of the school, these students were able to enjoy real moments of exchange with the trainers during breaks and meals (which were paid for thanks to the school’s sponsors: Code Reckons, Intel and EVIDEN), and with dedicated round tables and social events on the Saturday.

They also had access to special tours of the LAPP premises: the EUTOPIA Discovery Center and the MUST Computing Center. Students were able to learn about the history of our laboratory, which was founded in 1976, thanks to a visit to the computer science museum (set up for the first time in October 2023 during the last Fête de la Science) and a tour of the site.

Gaining valuable skills

Thanks to these two intensive weeks, participants in the school have benefited from a real increase in skills and will be able to use what they have learned to optimise calculations in their professional missions. On the last day of the school, they were also able to apply the course content to their own problems, with the help of professionals from the HPC world, and two Eviden experts who came especially for them!

Code Reckon, sponsor of the school, has also offered the first 50 registered students a one-year subscription to a series of training courses on performance and software engineering (languages, best practices and tools) via their dedicated platform.

LAPP and CC-FR would like to thank everyone who contributed to the success of the event. The Gray Scott 2024 summer school not only enabled participants to deepen their knowledge, but also fostered fruitful exchanges between students and instructors.

Following the success of the first two editions, the Gray Scott Summer School will return in 2025, from 23 June to 4 July, in collaboration with the CC-FR, with an English-language programme to broaden its international reach.

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