Bangalore: More than 300 high performance computing specialists, researchers, academics and government planners are gathering in India's technology capital, Bangalore for the biggest high performance computing (HPC) conference and exhibition in Asia Pacific region starting next week.

HPC Asia 2002 is slated to be inaugurated by Union Information and Technology secretary R R Shah at a function to be presided over by Union Science and Technology secretary V S Ramamurthy, on December 16 evening.

The three-day event starting on December 17 is co-hosted by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), and Advanced Computing and Communications Society (ACS), a C-DAC release said on December 13.

It would provide an opportunity for the participants to interact at an international forum through a technical programme, tutorials, workshops, panel discussions, keynote addresses and papers, among others, C-DAC said.

According to the release, acknowledging the importance of India as a key player in the HPC area, the significant developments in the space and the "pioneering" work carried out at C-DAC, the HPC Asia International Committee decided to hold it in the country for the first time.

"With its role in catalysing development in strategies and key economic sectors using HPC technologies in the Asia Pacific region, HPC Asia International aims at propagating these developments at the event among the participants from India, USA, Russia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Ghana," it said.

Followed by the HPC Asia 2002, C-DAC would host an Indo-US workshop on HPC and scientific applications and future trends on December 20 at the C-DAC Knowledge Park.

Sponsored by the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum, the event provides a forum for scientists from both countries to deliberate on HPC development issues and future trends, it was stated.

PTI