EuroHPC celebrates supercomputing breakthroughs at 2026 User Days in Dublin

Best EuroHPC User Awards

Two researchers have received the 2026 Best EuroHPC User awards in recognition of their strategic deployment of the continent's supercomputing resources. Stephen Beller and Thomas Saillour were selected by the European supercomputing centres that host and operate the EuroHPC machines. The honours acknowledge both their efficient use of the infrastructure and their ability to optimise computational workloads across these systems.

Beller's award-winning work involved generating multiparameter subsurface images from multicomponent seabed seismic data through 3D elastic Full Waveform Inversion. This technique produces detailed maps of geological structures beneath the ocean floor, aiding understanding of crustal formation and behaviour. Such research informs safer choices regarding energy development, carbon storage, infrastructure planning and environmental stewardship. To manage the computational demands of wave propagation simulation using the spectral element method, the research ran on the MareNostrum5 GPP partition via the Extreme Scale Access call. Over the course of a year, Beller consumed 489,000 node hours while executing large-scale simulations with notably efficient use of CPU and memory.

Saillour received his award for the SeaReport initiative, which accessed both the MeluXina CPU and MareNostrum5 GPP partitions through the Extreme Scale Access and Regular Access calls. His team was allocated 160,000 and 240,000 node hours respectively on these systems. The project strengthens the Joint Research Center's capacity for global metocean modelling, enabling more precise 3D simulations and forecasts of storm surge and water level changes. This capability helps coastal populations prepare for extreme weather intensified by climate change. Throughout the project, Saillour and his colleagues demonstrated exceptional stewardship of EuroHPC infrastructure and collaborated productively with centre staff. They partnered with EPICURE, an Application Support Team, to develop optimised code that better exploited the supercomputer's hardware capabilities.

Best Papers Awards

Two publications have been recognised as Best Papers at the 2026 gathering. In spring 2026, EuroHPC users submitted research outputs based on projects utilising the infrastructure. A scientific review board assessed the submissions and selected papers for presentation in the Elsevier Procedia Computer Science proceedings of the event.

Carolina Oliveira Costa, formerly with the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation, won Best Paper recognition for "Mitigating Catastrophic Forgetting in Multilingual Continual Pretraining: Lessons from EU Institutional LLMs". Having since taken a position outside the Commission, Costa was unable to attend; Ilja Rausch, co-author and principal investigator, accepted on the team's behalf. The review board commended the paper for its alignment with EU institutional needs, rigorous methodology and practical value as a guide for developing a multilingual large language model supporting all 24 official EU languages. The research tackled catastrophic forgetting, the phenomenon where models lose previously acquired capabilities when learning new material. Findings highlighted the tension between enabling multilingual adaptation and preserving high-resource language performance. Work was performed on the Leonardo Booster supercomputer.

Dr. Rodrigo Bartolomeu of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre in Germany and the MultiXscale CoE also received Best Paper honours for "Scaling and performance aspects of the P3M method on multiple GPUs". The review board selected this submission for its clear and substantial advancement in accelerating and improving the efficiency of complex scientific simulations on contemporary supercomputers. The paper addressed a persistent challenge in particle simulations: computing interactions among vast numbers of charged particles across large distances, a computationally expensive operation. The team created a flexible software library implementing the Ewald and P3M methods, optimised for both CPUs and GPUs, including multi-GPU configurations. Results demonstrated that performance hinges on balancing computational work against inter-processor data exchange. Computational work took place on the MareNostrum 5 Accelerated partition.

Anders Jensen, EuroHPC JU Executive Director, commented on the recognition:

These awards recognise the exceptional work of the researchers and teams behind these projects. Their achievements show how EuroHPC supercomputers can support scientific excellence and innovation and bring practical solutions to some of the most pressing issues of our time.

Anders Jensen, EuroHPC JU Executive Director

Background

The fourth EuroHPC User Days convened from 22–24 September 2026 at the Clayton Hotel in Dublin. Around 700 participants attended, making it the largest gathering to date. The annual event provides a focal point for engaging with EuroHPC user communities and celebrating successful research initiatives conducted with the infrastructure. It serves as a platform for knowledge exchange, results dissemination and professional networking among EuroHPC users.

The EuroHPC JU functions as a legal and funding mechanism uniting the European Union and participating member states to coordinate supercomputing efforts and consolidate resources. Its goal is positioning Europe as a global supercomputing leader. The organisation has already procured 12 supercomputers distributed across the continent. Scientists and organisations from the public and private sectors across Europe can access these machines through EuroHPC Access Calls to advance research and develop applications with industrial, scientific and societal value.

Beyond supercomputing, the EuroHPC JU oversees 19 AI Factories and 13 AI Factory Antennas across Europe, providing free tailored assistance to small and medium enterprises and startups. The organisation is also deploying a European Quantum Computing infrastructure that combines diverse European quantum technologies with existing supercomputers. Additionally, it funds research and innovation initiatives to build a complete European supercomputing supply chain spanning processors, software, applications and expertise development.

Following the recent adoption of Council Regulation (EU) 2026/150, the EuroHPC JU's remit has expanded to include deployment of AI Gigafactories throughout Europe and advancement of quantum technologies.