The Centre for High Performance Computing has extended the registration deadline for its Student Cluster Competition’s (SCC) selection round. Teams now have until 17:00 on Friday, 25 April 2025 to complete their registrations.
All successful teams will be notified no later than Wednesday, 7 May 2025.
The Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) invites applications from eligible undergraduate students at South African universities to participate in the 2025 CHPC Student Cluster Competition. This competition provides students with valuable exposure to the high-performance computing Industry.
The winning team will represent South Africa during the 2026 International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany. To enter a team, visit https://events.chpc.ac.za/event/153/ and complete the online application form before 17:00 on Monday, 14 April 2025.
If multiple teams from the same institution are applying, an internal selection process, in the form of an interview or quiz, is encouraged. Teams should indicate their ranking on the application form.
Successful teams will be notified by Friday, 2 May 2025.
Please assist the CHPC in advertising this opportunity by forwarding this message to appropriate personnel.
The competition format for 2025 will be an intensive in-person competition week. Online resources for virtual self-study will be made available before the start of the week on Sunday, 6 July 2025. The competition week will take place from Sunday, 6 July to Saturday,12 July 2025.
Should your institution have a conflict with the dates, please contact the organising committee and we will endeavour to make the necessary arrangements to permit you to travel. Please note that there are no fees for successful applicants. All costs associated with travel, transport, accommodation, and catering will be covered by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
The CHPC is an initiative funded by the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation and managed by the CSIR.
The 15th Southern African Development Community’s Cyberinfrastructure (CI) forum is currently taking place at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria. The countries in attendance are, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The forum is developing a five-year regional CI implementation plan, which will be presented for endorsement in March 2025 at the SADC Senior Official Meeting for Education and Training, Science, Technology and Innovation (ET-STI). The plan will then be submitted for final approval at the SADC Ministerial Meeting in Zimbabwe in June 2025.
The implementation plan aims to operationalise the SADC Cyberinfrastructure Framework, which was approved by SADC ET-STI ministers in 2016. The framework aims to enhance regional research and education networks, data-sharing infrastructure and human capital development to ensure the efficient and effective use of CI resources.
The inaugural SADC CI forum was held during the CHPC National Conference in Durban in 2012, when South Africa was the only member state with a CI. Since then, through the implementation of the regional CI framework and national initiatives, several southern African member states have established high-performance computing facilities.
“National research networks are also developing in the region. We need to accelerate the rate at which we upgrade our infrastructure for the development of our countries,” said Dr Willie Ganda, Chief Director for Innovation, Science and Technology Development at Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development.
The growing availability of CI infrastructure in the region presents new opportunities for researchers, domain scientists and cross-border collaborations in research and development.
The two-day forum concludes on Tuesday, 18 February 2025.
The National Integrated Cyberinfrastructure System (NICIS) recently joined the SA-European Organisation for Nuclear Research’s (CERN) 15-year celebration at Ithemba Labs. The CSIR has become a full participant in the international experiment ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) through NICIS. The centre provided an overview of the collaboration between CERN/Alice and NICIS.
NICIS brings expertise and resources in high-performance computing, large-scale data storage and highspeed bandwidth to the project. ALICE is designed to study the physics of strongly interacting matter at extreme energy densities. To support this, CERN relies on purpose-built high-performance computing infrastructure, large-scale storage and high-speed connectivity services provided by a global network of high-performance cluster node facilities. NICIS is committed to enhancing ALICE’s computational capabilities and enabling faster data processing and analysis by providing the only tier-two high-performance computing node in Africa.
The Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation (DSTI) has shown interest in pursuing Associate Membership with CERN. This decision will be guided by an initial evaluation and assessment report to explore South Africa’s potential contributions and strategic benefits. Furthermore, the CHPC will explore formal membership in the ATLAS experiment, mirroring the successful model established with ALICE.
The two-day event featured high-level talks and reflections on the SA-CERN consortium including a keynote address by the Deputy Minister for Science, Technology & Innovation, Ms Nomalungelo Gina, and presentations from key stakeholders and leading physicists.
A new Pretoria-based zone of Sebowa will be available to users from March 2025. This expansion will provide faster access to the National Integrated Cyberinfrastructure System (NICIS) services in Pretoria and enable users to build multi-zone applications for improved availability.
Sebowa provides the following services:
For more information, please contact:
Nox Moyake
