The Gray Scott Summer School is an advanced training program focused on high-performance computing (HPC), organized by the Annecy Laboratory of Particle Physics (LAPP) and the HPC, HPDA, and AI Competence Center. The fourth edition of this summer school will take place at LAPP from June 22 to July 3, 2026. Students will be able to choose to participate on-site at LAPP in Annecy (with the professors), in several European cities with dedicated satellite sites, or remotely, by following the courses live online. The courses will be taught entirely in English.
The Gray Scott HPC Summer School
As part of the ESCAPE collaboration’s work program, and in partnership with the CC-FR Competence Center, LAPP is organizing the fourth edition of the Gray Scott School from June 22 to July 3, 2026. This English-language summer school—which is completely free and one of a kind—will focus on programming and optimization on heterogeneous architectures.
The course covers the optimization of computations on various types of hardware (CPUs, GPUs), presenting their respective characteristics, architectures, and limitations. It also covers generic optimization methods applicable to all types of hardware, as well as the various libraries, technologies, and languages available to achieve the best possible performance—ideally, the machine’s maximum performance.
Through hands-on sessions, courses, and technical webinars, Gray Scott School equips participants with the skills needed to design, optimize, and scale high-performance applications.
Technologies covered
- Profiling tools: Valgrind, Maqao, Perf, NSight, Malt, NumaProfIt
- Programming languages: C++17, C++20, CUDA, Fortran, Python, Julia
- Compilers: g++ , clang++, nvc++, gfortran, nvfortran, dpc++
- Libraries: Eve, NumPy, cuNumerics, Legate, Jax, Thrust, cuPy, PyCUDA, PyTorch, Kokkos, OpenMP, TBB
How can I attend Gray Scott School in 2026?
This intensive or "à la carte" training program can be taken in three ways:
- In-person at LAPP in Annecy with faculty members, including a day of BootStrap (solving your programming and optimization problems). Read this article for a glimpse into the students’ experience.Register here.
- Remotely from numerous satellite sites across Europe (more information here).
- Remotely, tailored to your needs, via a live stream on YouTube, with a Discord server set up to facilitate interaction between students and instructors, accessible only to registered participants.
Please note: If you plan to attend in person, please ensure that your organization has approved your travel and that you have made all necessary arrangements. The number of spots at each location is limited based on venue capacity.
Get ready for school: the “Gray Scott Thursdays” webinars
In the lead-up to the summer program, we are organizing a special series of 17 webinars, titled“Gray Scott Thursdays,” covering topics such as unit testing, CPU and GPU architecture, computational precision, memory allocation, CPU and GPU computing with Modern C++, Rust, Fortran, Python, and SYCL, as well as EVE and CUDA…
These weekly sessions will allow participants to:
- Introduce the key concepts covered in the courses
- Provide an overview of the most well-known programming languages and libraries
- Develop your skills and give you the opportunity to meet our exceptional instructors
Whether you want to deepen your expertise, solve a specific problem, or join a vibrant community of learners, Gray Scott School has something for everyone!
Sign up here to receive all the information and links for upcoming webinars
Learn more
- Contact: Pierre Aubert, research engineer at LAPP
- Register here for Gray Scott School 2026
- Sign up here to receive all the information and links for upcoming webinars