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CEA and RIKEN held bi-annual workshop at Kobe


​The CEA/RIKEN bi-annual workshop on High Performance Computing (HPC), Quantum Computing (QC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) gathered 35 researchers online and in Kobe.  CEA and RIKEN signed an agreement on January 2022 to collaborate in the field of AI, big data, QC and HPC, renewing for five more years a collaboration running since 2017. This workshop took place on the 18 and 19 of October 2022. The previous workshop of this new collaboration period had taken place in Paris on the 1st and 2nd of June 2022.

Published on 7 November 2022

CEA and RIKEN teams discussed the ongoing and future roadmaps for their supercomputers as well as quantum computing research programs.

CEA and RIKEN are already strongly collaborating on applications development and optimization through joint work on CEA's applications Smilei and WarpX (both Particle in Cell applications) and Gysela (fusion plasma application). These three applications have been granted access to Fugaku in fall 2021 in the context of the collaboration, and thanks to an in-depth optimization of WarpX, CEA and RIKEN managed to get finalist of the ACM Gordon-Bell prize for SC22 conference (see https://www.hpcwire.com/2022/08/12/sc22-unveils-acm-gordon-bell-prize-finalists/ ). "Working on Fugaku in the context of the CEA/RIKEN collaboration is a chance as CEA researcher can prepare their code for Arm architecture at the exascale level with the help of experts from RIKEN", said France Boillod-Cerneux, managing the collaboration for the CEA, "We would like to renew this successful experience with more CEA applications which could get benefit from Fugaku architecture". RIKEN organized a visit of Fugaku with the CEA researchers, discovering for the first time the supercomputer on which their applications are executed.

A specific emphasis was put on Quantum Computing (QC) during this workshop, as this work package has been recently created in January 2022. Both CEA and RIKEN are fostering QC research within their institutes (from the fundamental research to the application development). After online kick-off of these discussions, meeting in Kobe was the occasion for the teams to discuss in person. Possible interactions on quantum computing could focus on the integration of Quantum Processing Units (QPUs) within HPC infrastructures, as well as experiencing quantum algorithms on different QPUs architecture by mutual access to respective quantum computing facilities.

CEA and RIKEN will also foster activities in Artificial Intelligence: teams have been discussing the development and accuracy of AI models to replace regular high performance computing simulations, or improve the usage of HPC systems (such as using AI models to improve energy consumption of HPC systems). Future meetings will be organized to identify cores subjects of common interest.

The CEA RIKEN collaboration is involving more than 60 researchers in HPC, AI and Big Data, working together from different places, meeting twice a year during plenary workshops in France and Japan alternatively.  

Despite of the COVID-19 pandemic situation, CEA and RIKEN successfully organized the CEA-RIKEN workshop on October 18 and 19 at RIKEN R-CCS in a form of a hybrid workshop. During the workshop, we had productive discussion in several other research collaboration areas, in addition to application porting, Quantum Computing and AI and BigData: Training and Skills, System Management, Programming and Tools, Benchmarking new Architectures and more Applications Development for Scientific and Societal Challenges (seismic, materials sciences).

Thanks to the CEA and RIKEN collaboration, French and Japanese researchers achieved a number of advances and original developments in computational and computing sciences are looking forward for more success stories in the next five years.

Press Contact CEA : presse@cea.fr | +33 1 64 50 20 11

Press Contact RIKEN : r-ccs-koho@ml.riken.jp

HPC at RIKEN

RIKEN is Japan's largest scale and most comprehensive research organization, with a staff of 3500 persons and a budget of 775 million euros. For over a century since its foundation in 1917, RIKEN has fostered pioneering, innovative research in fields spanning the entire range of the natural sciences, from developmental biology and neuroscience to quantum physics and computer science. Today, RIKEN encompasses a network of world-class research centers across Japan, offering state-of-the-art facilities that rank among the best in the world.

RIKEN Center for Computational Science is home of the supercomputer Fugaku, the world's most powerful supercomputer. Fugaku was developed under a national plan to design Japan's next generation flagship supercomputer and to carry out a wide range of applications that will address high-priority social and scientific issues, and began full-scale operations in March 2021. It is used in applications aimed at achieving the Society 5.0 plan, by running applications in areas such as drug discovery; personalized and preventive medicine; simulations of natural disasters; weather and climate forecasting; energy creation, storage, and use; development of clean energy; new material development; new design and production processes; and—as a purely scientific endeavor—elucidation of the fundamental laws and evolution of the universe.

http://www.riken.jp/en/
http://www.r-ccs.riken.jp/en/

HPC at CEA

CEA is a major player in research, serving the State, the economy and citizens. It provides concrete solutions to their needs in four main areas: energy transition, digital transition, technologies for the medicine of the future, defense and security.

CEA is active and present all along the advanced computing and HPC value chain, from technologies to usages. Different CEA divisions are active in the development of large scientific applications, in order to tackle our next challenges in terms of climate modelling, fusion energy, low-carbon energy, material sciences, global security, astrophysics, health. CEA is also a key player in semiconductor technology, architecture of processors, artificial intelligence hardware and software; as well as in supercomputer co-design, the development of HPC software environments, programming tools and algorithms.

 (c)CEA

CEA operates world-class computing resources and delivers related services, in particular for research (TGCC) and industry (CCRT). TGCC is a leading European supercomputing facility, whose operation and user support are ensured by teams of the CEA centre in Bruyères-le-Châtel (91, France).

http://www.cea.fr/english-portal
http://www-hpc.cea.fr/index-en.htm

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