UniBw M becomes a pioneer in HPC research – a milestone for Germany!

UniBw M becomes a pioneer in HPC research – a milestone for Germany!

The University of the Bundeswehr Munich (UniBw M) is the first university in the European Union to secure a significant place in the High Performance Software Foundation (HPSF). Since March 2025, UniBw M has been an associated member of this organization, which was founded in 2024 and is dedicated to promoting open source software for high performance computing (HPC). As the University of the Bundeswehr Munich reports, this accession opens up numerous opportunities for networking and knowledge exchange in the HPC community.

HPC is a central component of numerous applications in science, technology and business. Whether in climate models or weather forecasts, HPC enables the efficient processing of complex and computationally intensive tasks. The Institute for Mathematics and Computer-Aided Simulation (IMCS) at UniBw M actively uses HPC techniques in its research. An outstanding example is the software tool 4C (Comprehensive Computational Community Code), which answers complex mechanical questions in engineering and biomedicine.

Technological support from the HPSF

According to information from the Linux Foundation The HPSF aims to build a viable core software stack for HPC and increase the acceptance of these technologies. The HPSF was founded on May 13, 2024 in Hamburg and is supported by well-known organizations such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and other major players in the HPC ecosystem. HPSF aims not only to promote collaboration between industry, academia and government, but also to facilitate participation in open HPC projects.

Part of the HPSF's strategy includes technical projects such as the HPC package manager Spack and a performance portable programming model called Kokkos. These technologies provide HPC developers with valuable resources and support performance analysis, collaboration, and benchmarking initiatives. The HPSF also plans to set up a technical advisory committee to lead working groups on various HPC topics.

Past and outlook

The HPSF's first conference took place May 5-8, 2025 in Chicago, where Dr. Matthias Mayr, head of the Data Science & Computing Lab at IMCS, represented UniBw M and emphasized the advantages of membership. In his speech, he highlighted the added value that the HPSF can offer for academic networking. Building relationships with the academic sector is a central goal of UniBw M, which aims to establish itself as a pioneer in the field of high-performance computing.

In addition, access to HPC clusters is an important prerequisite for using these technologies. As on the ITMZ website University of Rostock As described, users need a general account and must submit an extension request. Access to the HPC clusters is only possible via the University of Rostock network, but VPN access is also required for external access.

With membership in the HPSF, UniBw M positions itself at the forefront of HPC innovations and confirms its commitment to the development of powerful software solutions that are becoming increasingly important in numerous scientific and industrial applications.