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Primeur weekly 2013-05-13

Special ISC'13 session to probe the thinking behind Europe's Human Brain Project

Photo credit: EPFL/HBP10 May 2013 Leipzig - The Human Brain Project, recently awarded a 10 year grant by the EU Commission, will pull together all our existing knowledge about the human brain and to reconstruct the brain, piece by piece, in supercomputer-based models and simulations. In a special session at the 2013 International Supercomputing Conference, scientists working on the Human Brain Project will discuss their vision and roadmap for computing. ISC'13 will be held June 16-20 in Leipzig, Germany. The session on "Supercomputing & Human Brain Project - Following Brain Research & ICT on 10-Year Quest" will be held Tuesday, June 18.

The brain, with its billions of interconnected neurons, is without any doubt the most complex organ in the body and has long fascinated researchers attempting to understand all its mysteries. The Human Brain Project will attempt to simulate the complete human brain, offering the prospect of a new understanding of the human brain and its diseases and of completely new computing and robotic technologies.

Federating more than 80 European and international research institutions, the Human Brain Project is estimated to cost 1.19 billion euros. It will be co-ordinated at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, by neuroscientist Henry Markram with co-directors Karlheinz Meier of Heidelberg University, Germany, and Richard Frackowiak of Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and the University of Lausanne. The project will also associate some important North American and Japanese partners.

Featured speakers at the ISC'13 discussion of the Human Brain Project are:

Prof. Dr. Felix Schürmann, General Project Manager of the Blue Brain Project, will discuss "A Simulation Perspective on Challenges & Opportunities in the Human Brain Project". The Human Brain Project will build on the efforts of the Blue Brain Project, a project started in 2005 at EPFL and funded by the Swiss government.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Lippert, Director of Germanys Juelich Supercomputing Center, will present "The Supercomputing Infrastructure Roadmap for the Human Brain Project". Prof. Lippert is the subproject leader for High Performance Computing in the Human Brain Project and will co-ordinate the required supercomputing efforts across several European compute centres.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Schulthess, Director of the Swiss National Supercomputing Center, will discuss "Opportunities for New Developments in Supercomputing in the Human Brain Project". The Swiss National Supercomputing Center will host the Human Brain Project development supercomputer and related efforts.
Prof. Dr. Karlheinz Meier, Professor of Physics at Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg and Co-director of the Human Brain Project, will give a talk on "Future Computing & the Human Brain Project". Prof. Meier is the subproject leader for Neuromorphic Computing in the Human Brain Project.

The session will be chaired by Richard Walker, a senior science writer for the Blue Brain Project at EPFL.

Now in its 28th year, ISC'13 is expected to draw 2,500 attendees from academia, research institutions and industry around the world to the Congress Center Leipzig. More than 160 leading organisations in the field of high performance computing will showcase their products and research in the ISC exhibition. By registering before May 15, attendees can save over 25 percent off the onsite registration rates.

For more information about this session and the full ISC'13 programme, you can visit the ISC'13 website.

Source: ISC'13