Effective High-Performance Computing & Data Analytics

This CSCS/USI HPC Summer School course will focus on the effective exploitation of state-of-the-art hybrid High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems with a special focus on Data Analytics. Starting from an introductory explanation of the available systems at CSCS, the course will progress to more applied topics such as parallel programming on accelerators, code optimization, scientific libraries, and deep learning software frameworks. The following topics will be covered:

• GPU architectures
• GPU programming (CUDA)
  • Programming model
  • Memory management
  • Performance optimization and scientific libraries
• GPU-Accelerated Computing with Python
  • NumPy-like libraries for both CPUs and GPUS computing
  • Just-in-time compilation from Python code
  • Distributed workloads on HPC clusters

The Summer School will be organized on 25.07.2026 - 31.07.2026. Further information and content is available on the CSCS-USI Summer University 2026 page.

The content of the course is tailored for intermediate graduate students (Master’s students, in particular EUMaster4HPC students) interested both in learning parallel programming models and having hands-on experience using HPC systems, including GPUs. 

In presence

Extensive lab sessions will help to clarify and consolidate the theoretical material. The in-person training will be composed of lectures and interactive sessions for hands-on exercises, as well as Q&A. We are aiming at limiting the lectures to 50% so as to have enough time for hands-on; however, the mileage may vary depending on the topic. 

The examination method will be a quiz on the last day of the Summer School program - Friday, July 31, at 11:00 CEST (Central European Summer Time). The quiz will be done in person and covers all objectives and content of the course. It will include multi-choice questions and open-ended questions which will be assessed by the lecturers and professors. Students will be notified about the result of the examination by Thursday August 06, 2026. Students who successfully pass the exam will receive a confirmation of participation and exam certificate for this course.

Please note that the exam will take place exclusively in-person. Students of group 1 (in-person participants) will take the exam at Hotel Serpiano, where the program is being held. Students of group 2 (remote participants) wishing to take part in the exam should plan to do so either at Università della Svizzera italiana or at ETH Zurich (exam rooms will be communicated closer to the Summer University program dates). There will be no alternative dates for taking the exam.

• Swiss National Supercomputing Centre, 31.07.26 - 31.07.26 (Optional)