HPSF Conference (March 16–20, 2026) in Chicago marks a pivotal moment for the high performance computing (HPC) community. The first several days are packed with main stage sessions and then HPSF Project Meetings kick off on Wednesday afternoon through Friday. These meetings will feature deep-dive technical planning and hands-on problem-solving. Below is a guide to the project-specific tracks and the sessions you won’t want to miss from AMReX, Apptainer, Chapel, Charliecloud, Environment Modules, Flux Framework, HPX, Kokkos, OpenCHAMI User Summit, Spack, and Trilinos User Group (TUG).
HPSFCon Project Meetings
AMReX
Date: Thursday, March 19
AMReX focuses on block-structured adaptive mesh refinement. This meeting explores how the framework is evolving to support exascale simulations and AI-driven workflows.
Session Spotlight:
- AI Agents for AMReX Workflows: Leveraging Production Knowledge and Validation: Look at an AI agent framework that provides natural language access to these powerful tools, dramatically accelerating workflow setup for new and experienced users alike.
- pyAMReX: Introduction, Interoperability Techniques & Best Practices: Deep-dive into connecting AMReX codes with NumPy/CuPy/PyTorch/etc. for seamless in-memory data exchange and AI/ML tasks.
View the full AMReX Project Meeting Schedule.
Apptainer
Date: Wednesday, March 18
Focused on the premier container system for HPC, this track covers security, integration, and the move toward unprivileged containers.
Session Spotlight:
- Container-Based Software Management in an HPC Environment: Best practices for managing software stacks within an HPC environment using Apptainer.
- Apptainer Project Meeting Discussion: General discussion and help session for the Apptainer project.
View the full Apptainer Project Meeting Schedule.
Chapel
Date: Wednesday afternoon, March 18
The Chapel project meeting at HPSFCon will provide an opportunity for attendees to learn about this productive language for scalable parallel programming and its ecosystem through a combination of prepared talks and demos. These will be interleaved with time for discussions, ad hoc demonstrations, and the opportunity to interact with project developers. Topics to be covered will include:
- an introduction to the language and its features for scalable parallelism
- the case for compiled languages in HPC and key optimizations in the Chapel compiler
- an overview of Chapel’s growing suite of developer tools
- Dyno, an initiative to evolve our code base from research prototype to production-grade
For details, see the full Chapel Project Meeting Schedule.
Charliecloud
Dates: Wednesday, March 18 – Friday, March 20
Charliecloud explores unprivileged, lightweight containerization tailored specifically for high-performance clusters.
Session Spotlight:
- How Partly and Fully Unprivileged Containers Really Work: An Illustrated Guide: A technical guide explaining the trend toward unprivileged Type II containers and how they function.
- A Charliecloud Development HOWTO for n00bs: An interactive introduction to Charliecloud development for those new to the project.
View the full Charliecloud Project Meeting Schedule.
Environment Modules
Date: Wednesday, March 18
Administrators and users gather to discuss the evolution of the software environment on supercomputers.
Session Spotlight:
- Environment Modules: Recent and Future Developments and Project Update: A review of key features including the module hierarchy mechanism and the project’s transition to the HPSF.
- Beyond module load: Exploring the Capabilities of Environment Modules – Part 1: A practical overview of lesser-known features that improve usability and flexibility in research computing environments.
View the full Environment Modules Project Meeting Schedule.
Flux Framework
Date: Wednesday, March 18
The inaugural “Flux Community Day” focuses on modern workload management and converged computing.
Session Spotlight:
- I Like to Kube It, Kube It: Move your AI/ML workloads with Flux: A look at how Flux handles complex AI/ML workloads and integration with the Model Context Protocol (MCP) for agentic science.
- Flux Fiction: A Plugin-Based Emulator for Scheduler Development in Flux: Presentation of an emulator that allows for studying and evolving scheduling policies without the risk of production experimentation.
View the full Flux Framework Project Meeting Schedule.
HPX
Date: Wednesday, March 18
This track offers an intensive tutorial on the C++ Standard Library for parallelism and concurrency.
Session Spotlight:
- HPX Tutorial Session: Advanced Parallel Programming in C++ using HPX: A comprehensive course on C++20 parallel features and their extensions available in HPX.
View the full HPX Tutorial Session Schedule.
Kokkos
Dates: Thursday, March 19 – Friday, March 20
The performance portability ecosystem showcases hardware-aware development and its expansion into new domains.
Session Spotlight:
- Neuromorphic Integration into the Kokkos Ecosystem: Exploring how to integrate neuromorphic hardware into the existing HPC ecosystem using Kokkos.
- Kokkos Fortran Interop: Enabling Fortran applications to leverage the Kokkos C++ ecosystem for performance portability without a total codebase rewrite.
View the full Kokkos Project Meeting Schedule.
OpenCHAMI
Dates: Wednesday, March 18 – Thursday, March 19
Modernizing system management through open, immutable, and OCI-compliant infrastructure.
Session Spotlight:
- Bootable Containers for HPC: A discussion on treating the OS as an OCI image to reduce misconfigurations and increase uptime.
- OpenCHAMI Installation and Configuration: Hands on Tutorial: A practical workshop on getting started with the OpenCHAMI framework.
View the full OpenCHAMI Project Meeting Schedule.
Spack
Dates: Thursday, March 19 – Friday, March 20
The premier package manager for HPC focuses on Windows support, exascale builds, and supply chain security.
Session Spotlight:
- State of Spack on Windows: Technical progress of the Spack on Windows project, highlighting the transition toward a production-ready environment.
- CMake Past, Present, and Future: A look at the evolution of CMake toward enabling cross-platform build portability for C++ developers.
View the full Spack Projet Meeting Schedule.
Trilinos User Group (TUG)
Dates: Wednesday, March 18 – Thursday, March 19
A gathering for users of the object-oriented software framework for solving large-scale problems.
Session Spotlight:
- How to Configure, Build, and Test Trilinos: Getting started guide for software developers and researchers interested in the fundamentals of building Trilinos
- Linear Solver Capabilities in the Trilinos Project: An overview of Krylov solvers, algebraic multigrid, and factorizations designed for modern GPU architectures.
View the full Trilinos User Group (TUG) Meeting Schedule.
Join Us in Chicago
Registration is still open! Don’t miss the chance to collaborate directly with HPSF project leads and your peers in the HPC community. Visit the official HPSF Conference Registration Page to secure your spot for both the HPSFCon main stage and project meetings with one registration.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]