Following two successful editions, the Gray Scott School returns to the Annecy Laboratory of Particle Physics (LAPP) from June 23 to July 4, 2025! This year, all courses will be taught in English, and students will have the option to attend in person at the LAPP in Annecy with the instructors, at dedicated satellite locations in several European cities, or remotely via live online streaming.
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 third edition of the Gray Scott School, which will take place from June 23 to July 4, 2025. This entirely free summer school, with its unique format, is dedicated to programming and optimization on heterogeneous architectures.
The course will focus on optimizing computations across different types of hardware (CPUs, GPUs), covering their respective characteristics, architectures, and bottlenecks. It will also cover generic optimization methods applicable to all types of hardware, as well as the various libraries, technologies, and languages that enable achieving the best possible performance—ideally, the machine’s maximum performance.
- Hardware: CPU, GPU
- Programming languages covered: C++17, C++20, CUDA, Fortran, Rust, Python, Julia
- Libraries examined: SYCL, Eve, NumPy, cuNumerics, Legate, Jax, Thrust, cuPy, pycuda, PyTorch
- Compilers used: G++, Clang++, nvc++, gfortran, nvfortran, dpc++
- Profiling tools: Valgrind, Maqao, Perf, NSight, Malt, NumaProf
All methods will be illustrated with simple examples, such as Hadamard products, reductions, the calculation of the barycenter, and matrix products, and will be applied to a single problem: the simulation of a Gray-Scott reaction.
This problem is simple enough to grasp quickly, but complex enough that compilers struggle to optimize it without assistance. Each method will be presented in a simple form, using the default options, and then in one or more advanced versions, allowing us to discuss and quantify their advantages and disadvantages.
How can I attend Gray Scott School in 2025?
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 in 2024.
- Remotely from numerous satellite sites across Europe (more information to come).
- Remotely, tailored to your needs, via a live stream on YouTube, with a Discord server set up to facilitate interaction between students and teachers.
Please note: If you are registering for an in-person event, please make sure 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 accuracy, 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!
Learn more
- Contact: Pierre Aubert, research engineer at LAPP
- Sign up here for the Gray Scott Summer School
- Sign up here to receive all the information and links for upcoming webinars