The CERN openlab management team

CERN openlab is run by a compact managment team, based in the CERN IT department.

Meet the members of this team below.

Head of CERN openlab
CTO for AI and Edge Devices
CTO for Platforms and Workflows
CTO for Storage
CTO for Computing
CTO Office
Chief Communications Officer
Junior Communications Officer
Junior Project Assistant
Chief admin & finance officer
Chief Financial Officer

Our R&D pillars

Today, over 30 joint R&D projects are being carried out through CERN openlab. These tackle future computing challenges related to exascale, AI, quantum computing, and more.

Welcome to CERN openlab

CERN openlab is a unique public-private partnership, through which CERN collaborates with leading technology companies and other research organisations.

Together we work to accelerate the development of cutting-edge computing technologies for the research community.

Today, over 30 joint R&D projects are being carried out through CERN openlab. These tackle future computing challenges related to exascale, AI, quantum computing, and more.

Upcoming events

Stay tuned - something will come through shortly!

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INFN

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IBM

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Oracle

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Research and industry unite at 2022 CERN openlab Technical Workshop

research

CERN openlab brings together IT experts from research and industry to address the computing challenges posed by the LHC’s ambitious upgrade programme.

Over 200 people attended the 2022 CERN openlab Technical Workshop. The event was run online over three days, from 21 to 23 March. It saw leading computing experts from research and industry come together to discuss the work carried out through 32 joint R&D projects spread across CERN.

CERN openlab is a unique public-private partnership, through which CERN collaborates with leading technology companies. For 20 years, this partnership has been working to accelerate innovation in the computing technologies required by the LHC research community. Today, there are over 20 companies and research organisations working together in CERN openlab. Industry members include Intel, Oracle, Siemens, Micron and Google.

At the 2022 CERN openlab Technical Workshop, project teams shared their progress and discussed upcoming IT challenges related to the LHC’s ambitious upgrade programme. “Through CERN openlab, we are working with industry leaders to tackle tomorrow’s IT challenges today,” says Enrica Porcari, head of the CERN IT Department. “These challenges are relevant to a growing range of scientific fields, as well as wider society. Through collaboration with CERN’s Knowledge Transfer Group and dedicated R&D projects focused on sharing knowledge and tools with other communities, CERN openlab plays an important role in contributing to CERN’s positive impact on society.”

Exascale, AI, quantum computing and more

A particular highlight from the first day of the workshop, dedicated to exascale computing technologies, was the opening technical presentation, which focused on the Allen project. This project has developed a new, more efficient system that sees the first level of the LHCb experiment’s data-filtering ‘trigger’ system move to running on graphical processing units (GPUs), rather than general-purpose central processing units (CPUs).

The second day of the workshop focused on two separate topics: AI and collaborations with research beyond particle physics. The presentations on AI picked up on discussions from the first day about the cutting-edge computing resources that are unlocking new possibilities for approaches such as machine- and deep-learning. Several exciting projects were showcased, demonstrating innovations that can help to handle the increasing volumes — and complexity — of data from the experiments at CERN. The session on collaborations with research beyond particle physics featured a diverse range of projects, addressing issues from quantum encryption to biological simulation and from health data to climate modelling. Highlights included a presentation from CERN’s Knowledge Transfer Group and a presentation on a CERN openlab project with UNOSAT, outlining efforts to employ machine-learning techniques to improve the satellite imagery used to support humanitarian interventions by UN agencies.

The third day of the workshop focused on quantum technologies. Alberto Di Meglio, the head of CERN openlab, opened the session with a presentation on the CERN Quantum Technology Initiative (QTI). This exciting new venture published its first strategic roadmap in October 2021, outlining its medium- and long-term quantum research programme. CERN openlab contributes to CERN QTI, also led by Di Meglio, through many collaborative R&D projects related to either quantum computing or quantum communications and networks. Ten of these were presented at the workshop.  

Working together to tackle tomorrow’s IT challenges today

During 2022, the CERN openlab team will carry out work to strengthen existing collaborations with industry, finalising plans for a range of exciting R&D projects, as well as establishing new collaborations to address emerging IT challenges.

“CERN openlab has built deep connections between members of CERN’s research community and the R&D teams at the leading technology companies participating in this partnership. It is testament to the strength of these connections that we have been able to both grow our collaborations and make important technical progress on projects over the last two years when in-person interaction has been severely limited,” says Maria Girone, CERN openlab CTO.

“We are now looking forward to resuming face-to-face meetings with our collaborators and to welcoming the 2022 cohort of CERN openlab Summer Students to the CERN site in July.”

 

-- Andrew Purcell

2021 in review: new phase, new opportunities and renewed collaborations in support of science

Opportunities

2021 was an important year for CERN openlab: it marked the beginning of the collaboration’s seventh three-year phase. Following the finalisation of the technical work from the sixth phase, the CERN openlab team worked to define new R&D priorities.

Today, CERN openlab is working with over 20 organisations, including leading technology companies such as Intel, Oracle, Siemens, Micron and Google. This unique public-private partnership supports over 30 R&D projects spread across CERN.

In its new phase, CERN openlab’s technical work is split into three main areas: (1) exascale technologies, (2) AI technologies and (3) quantum technologies. A brief summary of the work conducted in each of these areas in 2021 is included below.

Exascale technologies

Exascale technologies fall at the intersection of several important R&D activities: developing applications for heterogeneous architectures, accelerating AI and machine-learning techniques on high-performance computing, and expanding resources for data-intensive science. 

Industry has invested heavily in accelerated processing systems and the largest HPC systems achieve the bulk of their processing capabilities with heterogeneous architectures. CERN openlab collaborates with industry leaders to foster exploration of heterogeneous accelerated hardware.

HPC and AI are undergoing a convergence driven by the large processing needs of AI applications and the capabilities of HPC sites. RAISE Center of Excellence is a project funded by the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 framework.  CERN is leading this project’s work package on data-driven use-cases towards exascale. This combines the challenges of AI, HPC and data to demonstrate the benefit of using HPC for processing-intensive workflows. 

Access to European HPC systems has also been facilitated by the collaboration between CERN, SKAO, GÉANT, and PRACE. This collaboration has been established to bring together high-energy physics and radio astronomy with HPC and networking communities to solve the challenges of exascale processing.

AI technologies

Deep learning is among the most promising strategies for data analysis at the LHC. Numerous prototypes are being developed to address different steps within the experiments’ data-processing chains. Nevertheless, further research is required into the robustness of models and their interpretability, result-validation policies, efficient use of computational resources, and user-friendly deployment strategies. Such research will play an important role in making it possible to fully integrate prototypes into the experiments’ workflows. 

CERN openlab has a strong research plan, which explores the issues outlined above by focusing on use cases from LHC and non-LHC experiments, IT infrastructure and accelerator controls. For instance, in 2021 a project team studied optimal strategies for accelerating the training and inference process for deep neural networks (data-parallel training and low-precision data representation, for example) and assessed their effect on physics results. The team also benchmarked performance on dedicated accelerators (GPUs, TPUs and IPUs) used across HPC and cloud environments.

Investigations targeted at improving the accuracy of deep-learning models have introduced state-of-the-art techniques, such as mode ensembling and hybrid architectures. These are being used to address use cases such as generative models for fast simulation and data de-noising for large experiments.

Quantum technologies

Quantum computing and other related technologies have been among the most important areas of research within CERN openlab in 2021. The first half of the year was devoted to the definition of a roadmap, covering the medium- and long-term objectives. This document defines the research programme of the CERN Quantum Technology Initiative in four main areas: quantum computing and algorithms; quantum theory and simulation; quantum sensing, metrology and materials; and quantum communication and networks.

CERN openlab has played a major role in this work, both in terms of coordination and at the technical level. Today, there are several CERN openlab R&D projects investigating the potential of quantum applications in high-energy physics.

CERN openlab’s quantum research activities in 2021 focused on both computing and communication. For the former, through the development of a series of algorithms targeted at different steps in the experiments’ data-processing workflows, from simulation to reconstruction and analysis. For the latter, a project called Quantumacy is dedicated to establishing an end-to-end data-analysis infrastructure that uses communication based on the distribution of quantum keys.

Activities related to the CERN-ESA agreement on a joint research programme for quantum computing also started in 2021. An initial investigation was conducted into the use of quantum machine-learning applications for image classification.

Beyond high-energy physics

In addition to the investigations into these three technology areas, 2021 saw work continue in CERN openlab’s investigations beyond high-energy physics. Several of these projects focus on medical applications and are carried out with support from CERN’s Knowledge Transfer group. A particular highlight was April’s launch of BioDynaMo v1.0, a software platform designed to easily create, run and visualise 3D agent-based simulations.

Away from medical applications, another important project was CERN openlab’s collaboration with UNOSAT, using machine-learning techniques to improve the satellite imagery that is employed to support humanitarian interventions by UN agencies.

Education and training

In addition to its technical work, 2021 was also an important year for CERN openlab’s education and training programmes. Given the ongoing pandemic, the 2021 CERN openlab Summer Student Programme was held in full online for the first time ever. 27 students from 15 countries participated in this year’s programme. Virtual visits were organised for the students and the students’ lectures were made available online to a broader public — these proved popular, given the large interest in the summer student programme.

CERN openlab also built upon experience gained in 2020 and ran the CERN Webfest as an online, global event. 300 people — from 63 countries — signed up for the hackathon, which focused on addressing several key UN Sustainable Development Goals. Apps were developed at the event to provide alerts for wildfires, to tackle domestic violence, to reduce educational inequality, and much more.

Using the lessons learned from this period, the CERN openlab team will seek to capitalise on other online opportunities for education and training in future, thus catering to the large, global demand that has been demonstrated for such programmes.

-- Andrew Purcell

Applications open for 2022 CERN openlab summer student programme

open lab

Are you a Bachelor's or Master's student in computer science, mathematics, engineering, or physics? Do you have a strong computing profile, and would you be interested in working on advanced computing projects at CERN during the summer of 2022? If so, we have just the solution for you... the CERN openlab summer student programme.

CERN openlab is a unique public-private partnership that accelerates the development of cutting-edge computing technologies for the worldwide LHC community and the wider scientific research field. Through CERN openlab, CERN collaborates with leading technology companies and research institutes.

Over nine weeks (June-August 2022), the CERN openlab summer students will work with some of the latest hardware and software technologies, and see how advanced IT solutions are used in high-energy physics. The students will also participate in a series of lectures prepared for them by computing experts at CERN, in addition to the main lecture series for CERN summer students. Visits to the accelerators and experimental areas are also included in the programme.

CERN is a place where dizzying IT challenges abound. The CERN openlab summer student programme may lead to follow-on projects in your home institute, or it may even inspire you to become an entrepreneur in cutting-edge computing technologies.

Full details are available on the CERN careers website. Apply by noon CET on 31 January and open up a world of possibilities!

-- Andrew Purcell

BioDynaMo project to host online workshop on agent-based modelling

agenda

On Friday 19 November, the BioDynaMo project will host a full-day workshop on agent-based modelling. Earlier this year, the project released the first version of its software platform for designing, running and visualising 3D agent-based simulations. Agent-based simulation is central to a wide range of research fields, from biology to business and epidemiology to economics.

Built on top of the latest computing technologies, the BioDynaMo platform enables users to perform simulations of previously unachievable scale and complexity, making it possible to tackle challenging scientific research questions. BioDynaMo’s agent-based modelling engine has been optimised for simulations involving billions of agents. In addition to biological simulations, BioDynaMo is already being used today for COVID-19 epidemiological simulations and large socio-economic simulations are under development.

The workshop on Friday 19 November is free and will take place online. The event, which is open to all, will feature talks related to a wide range of scientific fields. There will be opportunities to discuss how agent-based modelling approaches can play a vital role in driving innovative research in each of these fields.

The BioDynaMo platform has been developed through an ambitious international project, involving seven institutions: CERN, University of Surrey, Newcastle University, GSI Helmholtz Center, University of Cyprus, University of Geneva, ImmunoBrain Checkpoint and SCImPULSE Foundation. Representatives of several of these research centres — as well as others — will participate in the workshop. Sign up for the event by noon CET on Thursday 18th November.

Full workshop details and sign-up form: https://indico.cern.ch/e/BDM-ABM.

More information on the BioDynaMo project: https://biodynamo.org/.

-- Andrew Purcell