HPC-AI Advisory Council UK Conference 2026
The STFC DiRAC HPC Facility and HPC-AI Advisory Council invite you to the eighth annual UK Conference, taking place in person on 13 & 14 October 2026, at the Mattioli Woods Welford Road Stadium, Leicester, the home of the Leicester Tigers rugby team. This two-day gathering offers a unique opportunity to connect with fellow experts and practitioners across High Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
HPC and AI are no longer just tools for researchers: they are engines of discovery, economic growth, and societal transformation. Our conference theme for 2026 is “HPC-AI: From marketing to reality: What Works; What doesn’t; What’s Next?”. This is an opportunity to showcase where HPC and AI are already delivering discovery and growth, as well as an invitation to have frank discussions about challenges and wrong turns. A timely assessment of the current state of the art will provide a solid basis for transformational future developments.
These conversations aim to surface practical solutions, strengthen collaborative networks, and highlight the ways that all parts of the community can work together to deliver the full potential of HPC and AI.
For Students and Early Career Professionals:
This isn’t just an event, it’s an opportunity to get involved, contribute, and grow. The conference offers a chance to build connections with the UK’s scientific and technical leaders. Whether you’re exploring your future in research or refining your technical career, this is your place to engage and be inspired.
Potential topics for discussion at the conference include:
- Showcasing discovery: highlights from the cutting edge
- Human in the loop
- Agentic AI in an HPC context
- Start-ups and scale-ups in the HPC and AI ecosystem
- Long-term versus short term benefits
- Unintended consequences (e.g. better data curation)
- Policy and funding environment
- The Digital Research Infrastructure landscape