From 27 to 28 November, our Fusion Group had the honor of hosting the 2nd Annual Meeting of the EUROfusion HPC Advanced Computing Hubs (ACHs) at Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Spain. After a successful virtual first meeting, this event marked a significant return to in-person collaboration, bringing together around 29 researchers, 26 attending in person and 3 connecting virtually, from the five Hub centers: BSC-CIEMAT (Spain), EPFL (Switzerland), IPPLM (Poland), IPP Garching (Germany), and VTT (Finland).
The two-day event at BSC provided a platform for insightful discussions, knowledge sharing, and collaborative learning. Researchers presented updates on their ongoing projects, including cutting-edge work on fusion codes like JOREK, SOLPS-ITER, SPICE, STELLA, ERO2.0, BIT1, XTOR-K, GENE-X, BOUT++, GYSELA, ASCOT5, ORB 5, GENE-3D, GBS, GRILLIX, SOLEDGE3-X, SPEC, EIRENE, and STRUPHY.
Our research group participated in the meeting with talks on the work performed in the following codes: BIT1 (Xavier Sáez), BOUT++(Carlos Romero), ERO2.0 (Augusto Maidana), GENE-X (Carlos Romero), JOREK (Federico Cipolletta), SPICE (Alejandro Soba) and XTOR-K (Eduardo Cabrera).
Beyond technical presentations, the meeting fostered essential discussions on crucial topics such as efficient GPU code porting, implementation of EUROfusion Standard Software, and the recruitment landscape within the ACHs. A guided tour of the MareNostrum supercomputer further highlighted the power of high-performance computing in advancing fusion research.
This successful event reaffirms the importance of in-person collaboration in driving innovation and strengthening collaborations among European centers to accelerate progress in fusion science. We look forward to continuing our work with the EUROfusion HPC ACHs and contributing to the global effort to realize fusion energy.