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Showing off what UK DRI has to offer - CAKE at CIUK 2025

At the beginning of December, the CAKE team went to Computing Insight UK (CIUK) 2025 in Manchester, which takes place in the first week of December every year and is sometimes jokingly called the “Christmas Party of the UK HPC community”. Although not a party in the classical sense, this conference brings together researchers, service providers and practitioners in the UK high performance computing scene.

The CAKE stall presented both the range of Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI) projects currently running in the UK and funding opportunities offered through CAKE’s flexible funds route - knowledge exchange fellowships, bursaries for visits and placements, and funds to organise DRI knowledge exchange retreats. The stall also drew attention from the large Raspberry Pi training cluster provided by the DRIFT project, with lots of people being interested in technical details as well as how to use it in HPC training.

On the Friday of the conference, CAKE Co-I Marion was leading the fourth annual UK Women in HPC Chapters and Affiliates Breakfast, attended by over fifty women and male allies. It was a great opportunity to hear short, inspiring talks from early-career HPC practitioners, providing encouraging insights for all attendees. The session also highlighted the current work and development of WHPC chapters across the UK and Ireland, with the audience engaging in useful conversations about the needs of their communities and brainstorming ideas for the year ahead. Furthermore, participants took part in informal discussions on EDI, exploring how to support colleagues in their teams and encourage early-career researchers. As always, the WHPC event offered a safe and welcoming space within the conference, where attendees could share experiences and feel empowered by the strength of the community.

CAKE PI Nick presented at the NetworkPlus session on Friday lunchtime, where a series of four-minute lightning talks and a panel discussion helped introduce delegates to the range of current DRI projects and the people driving them. Following this, Nick co-organised the breakout session “From ExCALIBUR to DRI, linking the UK’s compute programmes” with Phil Hasnip. This longer afternoon session explored how the recently concluded ExCALIBUR programme relates to the emerging DRI landscape, and showcased a wide range of active projects. If you would like to see more details about the individual projects, you can dive into the slides here.

CIUK also hosted the Student Cluster Challenge, which brought a welcome burst of energy to the exhibition hall. Student teams from across the UK tackled a series of hands-on HPC tasks as part of the competition. It is always great to see so much emerging talent engaging with the challenges and contributing to the wider community atmosphere. Congratulations to Beariables from the University of Birmingham, who claimed the title of CIUK2025 Cluster Challenge Champions and will now go forward to represent CIUK at the ISC Cluster Challenge 2026.

Beyond the formal sessions, CIUK once again proved to be a valuable space for informal knowledge exchange and networking. Conversations at the CAKE stall, in the exhibition hall, and during the social events highlighted both the challenges and the opportunities facing the HPC community - from workforce development and sustainability to national cohesion across DRI projects. The enthusiasm around training, outreach, and cross-project collaboration was especially encouraging; many attendees expressed interest in how CAKE and the other DRI projects can support the next generation of practitioners and foster a more connected research computing ecosystem. As the UK’s HPC and DRI landscape continues to evolve, CIUK remains a key moment in the calendar — we are already looking forward to CIUK 2026!