Illinois Symposium on Parallelism Celebrates a Tradition of Innovation

10/3/2013 By Tom Moone

On September 10 and 11, the Illinois Symposium on Parallelism: Current State of the Field and the Future took place.

Written by By Tom Moone

On September 10 and 11, more than 70 researchers in the area of parallel computing came together in the Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science to discuss innovations in the area of parallel computing. The Illinois Symposium on Parallelism: Current State of the Field and the Future was in part a celebration of the research work that had been going on at the Illinois Parallelism Center since 2008. The Center was a partnership between the University of Illinois and Intel and Microsoft during 2008-2010, and between the University of Illinois and Intel during 2011-2013.

Josep Torrellas
Josep Torrellas

The attendees came from a variety of institutions, ranging from the computer industry to top academic departments and government. The workshop included talks, panels, and discussions on parallel applications, software systems, and hardware architectures. Students presented posters and demonstrations. A lively panel on The Future of Parallel Computing ended the workshop. The participants went away with many insights on the challenges facing the field in the next few years, and the tools that we possess to face them.

“The partnership that the Illinois team has had with our colleagues in Intel and Microsoft has been a uniquely fruitful one,” said symposium organizer and Computer Science Professor Josep Torrellas. “It shows the strength of this University in parallelism research, and the confidence that these research partners have in our technical work.”

Marc Snir
Marc Snir

Computer Science Professor Marc Snir went on to point out that the work done through the Center has already had impact on the computing world. “The work we have done has already impacted products, and has influenced future products that are still being developed,” he said. Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Wen-mei Hwu agreed: “A Center of this type presents unique opportunities for the students and faculty to work with our leading colleagues in industry.”

Symposium participants also received a book called Making Parallel Programming Easy: Research Contributions from Illinois. This publication provides a written overview of the research accomplishments of the Center, and includes 22 prominent publications that came out of the Center.
 


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This story was published October 3, 2013.