The annual conference of the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) dedicated to users, EuroHPC User Days 2026, was held in Dublin, Ireland, from 22 to 24 September. Following the cancellation of this year's EuroHPC Summit, which was scheduled to take place in Cyprus in March 2026, EuroHPC User Days 2026 served as a replacement event. In addition to EuroHPC system users, it attracted a broad audience from the European high-performance computing community, as well as the fields of artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
SRCE participated in the conference in its capacity as the coordinator of the Croatian Competence Centre for HPC consortium.
As users were the main focus of the conference, most of the programme was tailored to their needs. Participants had the opportunity to learn about some highly interesting and successful examples of using EuroHPC resources across the most widely represented disciplines. The scientific fields presented as examples of good practice included particle physics and astrophysics, engineering, applied mathematics, computer science, climatology, bioinformatics and medicine, as well as less traditional fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
In addition to topics directly related to users, participants were also introduced to current EuroHPC JU projects and initiatives, including AI factories, hyperconnectivity and the federation platform. The available options for accessing new quantum computers were explained, and the new federation platform for accessing and managing user projects was demonstrated.
Participants also gained insight into the status of the EuroHPC exascale supercomputers JUPITER and Alice Recoque. JUPITER entered production at the end of last year, although not yet at full capacity, while the data centre for Alice Recoque has been prepared and installation is expected to begin towards the end of 2026.
The conference also included a meeting of representatives of national HPC competence centres, which are partners in the EuroCC 3 project. This provided an opportunity for new project members to meet and get to know the other partners.
As in previous years, EuroHPC JU published the fourth edition of the EuroHPC User Days – Book of Proceedings, presenting an overview of some of the most significant research carried out using European supercomputing resources over the past year.
Since 2021, EuroHPC JU has been providing access to supercomputers for research in artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). In 2025, access to EuroHPC JU resources was granted to more than 1,600 research projects. In June 2026, a new access scheme was also introduced for European researchers in the field of quantum computing.
Users in Croatia will have the opportunity to learn first-hand about the latest developments in high-performance computing, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, as well as the future of computing infrastructure, at the Croatian Competence Centre for HPC (HR HPC CC) Day, which will be held in Zagreb on 24 and 25 November.
