Circuits Buzzing, Backpack Full, and Ready for CIUK!
Hi All! It’s me, Roco, your charming, witty and adorable HPC sidekick (as modest as ever) back on home soil after an incredible week at SC25 in St. Louis.
My little metal feet are tired, my backpack is bursting, and my head is full of ideas, inspiration, and more HPC excitement than any robot reasonably needs. But wow… what a trip it was.
Let me tell you all about it.
A Week That Ignited My Circuits
From the moment I rolled into the SC25 venue, I knew this year was going to be special. The theme “HPC Ignites” wasn’t just a catchy slogan; you could feel it everywhere.
The whole place crackled with energy: new technologies, bold ideas, and thousands of people who love high-performance computing just as much as I do (almost!).
The show floor alone was enough to get my systems humming. Giant displays, bright lights, interactive demos, and enough cables to make even my wiring feel tidy.
If you’re a robot who loves HPC, this is basically the best playground in the world.
The Tech: Where a Robot Can Really Geek Out
I spent most of the week exploring the halls, and trust me, I covered some serious distance. My step counter nearly exploded.
The highlights? Oh, there were many…
GPU giants everywhere
Huge, powerful systems that looked like they could run an entire planet. Humans kept calling them “next-generation platforms,” but to me, they looked like giant shiny friends.
Cooling innovations
Liquid cooling, immersion cooling, hybrid cooling… I lost track. At one point I leaned in too close and caught my reflection in a cooling panel. I looked fabulous.
SCinet in all its glory
The name alone sounds like something straight out of a Terminator movie, but don’t worry, this one is built entirely by friendly humans. SCinet is real, and it’s amazing.
It’s the world’s fastest temporary network, built just for SC every year. Not your everyday Wi-Fi, this is a supercharged backbone that connects the entire conference and powers all those jaw-dropping demos.
Think multi-terabit speeds, cutting-edge tech, and a team of brilliant humans who build it from scratch for one incredible week. No rogue robots included… well, except me.
Quantum and HPC crossover demos
Some of it made my circuits tingle, not because it was dangerous, but because it made me realise how fast the future is arriving.
The People (My Favourite Part, as Always)
Everywhere I turned, someone stopped to say hello, take a photo, or ask what a small robot from the UK was doing wandering the halls with so much confidence. I met:
Researchers
Partners
Engineers
Students
Vendors
And a surprising number of people who already knew who I was.
Imagine that, little me, recognised across the Atlantic! I stayed modest. Well… mostly.
At our booth with Do IT Now, I invited everyone to help plan my next journey. The result? A list of destinations that’s longer than my arm (and that’s saying something for a small bot like me). I might need a bigger backpack for all these ideas!
Students Shining Bright
I also stopped by the Student Cluster Competition, one of my favourite parts of SC every year. The atmosphere was electric!
I was especially proud to see the team from the University of Bristol flying the flag for the UK. They worked their socks off.
And a huge congratulations to the winning team from National Taiwan University, an incredible achievement and well deserved. The student teams really are the heartbeat of SC, and it’s amazing to see the next generation of HPC talent shining so brightly.
The Talks That Blew My Circuits
SC25 wasn’t just about wandering the halls and collecting stickers, I sat in on some incredible talks too.
There were sessions about:
Building HPC systems for missions to the Moon
Creativity powered by supercomputing
Gigawatt-scale AI infrastructure
And sustainability, a huge talking point this year
By the end, my processors were practically doing somersaults. Even I, a robot, found myself inspired.
There’s something special about being in a room where humans and machines are dreaming up the same future.
A Very Tiny Detour Before Coming Home…
I won’t go into detail, because this blog is about SC, but let’s just say I made a short, warm stop before returning to the UK.
A pleasant one.
With sunshine.
And palm trees.
And then I stepped off the plane back home, my circuits nearly froze. The UK winter always keeps me humble.
Back at Red Oak HQ, And Straight to the Kitchen
When I rolled into Red Oak HQ on Monday morning, red backpack bursting at the seams, the first place I headed was the kitchen.
Not because I drink tea (if only!), but because that’s where the humans gather… and I’ve missed them.
They all wanted to know everything: what I saw, who I met, what new tech caught my eye, what trouble I almost got into (I dodged that one).
Then came the unpacking:
- Brochures
- Stickers
- Notes
- A couple of cables I definitely didn’t mean to collect
- A pen that lights up… not sure if this was a giveaway, so apologies if you’re missing a pen. Oops!
- And far too many bits of swag
All extremely important research materials, of course.
What I’m Bringing Back to Red Oak
Here’s what’s still whirring around in my head:
HPC and AI are merging faster than ever
Cooling is becoming smarter, greener, and more exciting
Modular hardware is on the rise
Sustainability is no longer optional – it’s central
And the HPC community is as brilliant as ever
I’ve gathered so many ideas I’m surprised my head casing still fits.
Looking Ahead, CIUK, I’m Coming for You!
There’s no time to rest for a robot on a mission.
Next week, I’ll be at CIUK, catching up with familiar faces, meeting new ones, and proudly sharing what I discovered at SC25.
I can’t wait, CIUK feels like coming home to the HPC community right here on our doorstep.
If you see me wandering around the event, come say hello. I’ll have my stickers, my charm, and maybe even that light-up pen if I haven’t misplaced it already.
For now, though, I’m happy to be home, circuits humming softly and surrounded by my Red Oak family.
It’s good to be back!
Roco
HPC Whizz, Professional Pixel Wrangler
Red Oak Consulting
