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Did you know? The team behind CAKE is also part of the group that organises the Durham HPC Days - so it only felt right to officially introduce CAKE to the community at this year’s event! Durham HPC Days 2025 marked the third iteration of this annual gathering, which brings together the UK HPC community to share their work, discuss current challenges, and connect through talks, workshops, and tutorials.

Strategically placed in the week before ISC, one of the major international conferences for the HPC community, the Durham HPC Days gets both UK and international attendees and this year was no exception. A few standout moments included keynote talks from:

  • Rich Knepper (CASC, USA), who shared insightful perspectives on the evolving landscape of science funding in the US.
  • Thomas Gruber (RRZE, Germany), who presented his work on performance measurements, benchmarking, and reproducibility.
  • Katy Clough, who highlighted a very successful collaboration between researchers and RSEs (Research Software Engineers) to ensure their code is GPU-ready.

A personal highlight was the friendly atmosphere - it was a genuinely welcoming and open space for networking, knowledge exchange, and community building!

Official CAKE Kick-Off! 🎂

As part of Durham HPC Days 2025, we were thrilled to host a dedicated session to officially introduce the Computational Abilities Knowledge Exchange (CAKE) project to the community. This exciting announcement was made alongside the launch of two new DRI Accelerate Computing grants - a clear sign that there’s a lot of exciting stuff on the horizon! Nick Brown, Principal Investigator of CAKE, presented an overview of the initiative and shared our vision for the project. This includes:

  • What the daily running of the network might look like
    • How will we outreach to get communities engaged
    • What does our platform look like?
    • How can people join CAKE?
  • Opportunities for the community to get involved through our upcoming programmes:
    • Knowledge Exchange Fellowships
    • Placements and visits
    • Themed retreats
  • Our commitment to building up UKRI’s presence at key national and international events by supporting a UK booth at SC and ISC, a space where researchers can showcase their work, host meetings, and strengthen collaborations.

We’re really looking forward to working with the community to help support your knowledge exchange and collaboration! This is just the first step!

Written by: Eleanor Broadway

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Thumbnail photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash