From Curiosity to Compute: Creating New Pathways Into HPC
HPCwire, Friday, October 16th, 2026
A UK roadshow used a repurposed small supercomputer to give 181 people hands-on HPC experience, most for the first time.
The Sustainable Reality HPC and AI Roadshow visited UCL, Queen's University Belfast, Cardiff University and the University of York over eight days, welcoming 181 participants, 122 of whom had never worked with HPC.
Organizers handed out real cluster components and cables and let attendees assemble a small supercomputer, using basic questions about ports and interconnects such as Ethernet versus Omni-Path to open discussions of topology, bandwidth and latency.
The retired hardware also served as a sustainability lesson.
The authors argue that hands-on exposure is an effective way to widen the HPC talent pipeline.