ISC High Performance is one of the world’s leading conferences for high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), and advanced digital infrastructure. This year’s event brought together researchers, industry leaders, technology providers, and policymakers to discuss the future of AI and HPC. Throughout the conference, Mimer AI Factory actively contributed to these discussions through presentations, panel discussions, workshops, and Community Stage sessions.
AI Factories at the centre of the discussion
One of the strongest themes throughout ISC 2026 was the growing role of AI Factories in Europe’s AI strategy.
During several sessions, representatives from Mimer presented how AI Factories go beyond traditional supercomputing infrastructure by combining advanced compute resources with technical expertise, innovation support, training, and collaboration across academia, industry, startups, SMEs, and the public sector.
The discussions also highlighted how AI Factories are helping strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty while making advanced AI infrastructure more accessible to organisations that previously lacked the resources to develop and scale AI solutions.
Sharing experiences across Europe
Mimer team members participated in several sessions covering different aspects of Europe’s AI and HPC ecosystem.
Rossen Apostolov contributed to discussions on managing large EuroHPC collaborative projects and participated in the Birds of a Feather session A European HPC Ecosystem for AI: Challenges and Opportunities. The discussions focused on collaboration across national borders, support for SMEs, and improving access to advanced computing infrastructure.
Petra Dalunde represented Sweden in the HPC Around the World: Europe session, where speakers from leading European HPC centres shared perspectives on AI adoption, customer journeys, and the role of HPC in enabling innovation. She also joined a panel discussion on cross-border collaboration and Europe’s digital leadership.
Meanwhile, Vijeta Sharma and Petra Dalunde participated in the Community Stage Meet-Up on AI Factories, highlighting how these new ecosystems combine infrastructure, expertise, policy, and innovation support to accelerate scientific breakthroughs and industrial innovation.
Building skills for the future
Skills development was another important topic throughout the conference.
Yonglei Wang contributed to discussions on quality assurance in HPC and AI training through both the Quality Assurance in HPC/AI Training Birds of a Feather session and the EuroHPC Virtual Training Academy (EVITA) Community Stage Meet-Up.
The conversations focused on creating more consistent and scalable training opportunities across Europe and strengthening collaboration between training providers, research organisations, and industry.
Exploring AI performance on HPC
One of Mimer’s major contributions to ISC 2026 was organising the full-day workshop AI on HPC: Performance Engineering, Challenges and Opportunities.
The workshop brought together researchers, practitioners, and system developers to present the latest research and practical experiences at the intersection of AI and HPC. Topics ranged from performance optimisation and system architecture to engineering challenges and emerging opportunities for AI workloads on supercomputers.
A highlight of the workshop was the panel discussion The Rise of HPC-Driven AI Factories Worldwide, where experts from several European AI Factories discussed how advanced computing infrastructure is accelerating AI adoption and enabling new forms of collaboration across research and industry.
Strengthening Europe’s AI ecosystem
Across every session, workshop, and panel discussion, one message remained consistent: building competitive AI requires more than powerful hardware.
Success depends on accessible infrastructure, technical expertise, collaboration, training, and strong European partnerships.
ISC 2026 demonstrated how AI Factories are becoming an important part of this ecosystem. Through active participation across the conference programme, Mimer AI Factory contributed to the discussions shaping Europe’s future AI infrastructure while continuing to support researchers, startups, SMEs, industry, and the public sector in scaling AI from research to real-world impact.
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