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DSTN > Events > WACREN 2022 Conference

"Regional Workshop on High-Performance Computing".
"Federated HPC Infrastructures and Services for Open Science Communities in Africa"

As part of the WACREN 2022 conference on the theme "Open Science in Africa - Connecting the dots", which took place from April 25 to 29, 2022, the Digital Science and Technology Network (DSTN) in collaboration with the West and Central African Research and Education Network (WACREN) organized a workshop on High Performance Computing (HPC) on Wednesday April 27, 2022 in Abidjan.

DSTN > Events > WACREN 2022 Conference


The DSTN network brings together African Centers of Excellence (CEAs) working in the field of digital science and technology (computer science and mathematics) to meet the challenges posed by the digital transformation of science, the economy and society as a whole.

This Workshop brought together academic institutions from West and Central Africa (Universities, African Centers of Excellence, etc.), private and international partners to set up a regional and sustainable collaborative network on HPC. All DSTN member CEAs (ACETEL, CApIC, ENSEA, MITIC, OAK-PARK and SMIA), the WANIDA network's WACCBIP, the Centre National de Calcul de la Côte d'Ivoire (CNCCI) and LIRIMA will be present to present their HPC infrastructures and experience.

WACREN's presence was marked by the presentation of its infrastructure as a regional education and research network. The experience of an HPC network was shared by Inria, based on the Grid'5000 and SILECS projects.

Two major HPC application needs were highlighted. Firstly, the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and Africa (GMES and Africa) of the "Department of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation" of the African Union Commission gave a presentation on "High-Performance Computing at the Heart of the Use of Earth Observation for Near-Real-Time Management of Natural Resources and Security of People and Goods". Next, the Virtual University of Burkina Faso spoke on "Content, Platforms and Network: the propeller for high-performance digital education". This last use case is in line with the presence of the Africa Digital Campus project, with which we want to build an open-access MOOC on HPC.

The ultimate objectives of this HPC network are to

  • (i) co-organizing training courses and scientific events,
  • (ii) sharing human and material resources,
  • (iii) setting up and running joint research and development projects.

The expected outcome of this workshop was to develop strategies for the establishment of a regional network for sustainable collaboration on high-performance computing, to establish a roadmap guiding actions to achieve the objectives of such a network, and to secure the commitment of stakeholders (universities, industry, international partners) to support the network's activities.

This "HPC Day" was an opportunity to identify the key points of the roadmap: Sustainability and business plan; Creating a community of practice; Training; Infrastructure and energy; Connectivity; Resource and data sharing; Application development; HPC for education; Governance and regulation.