In an increasingly unstable global context, the HiPEAC conference, which this year takes place on 26-28 January in Kraków, will shine a spotlight on key computing technologies made in Europe. With digital sovereignty becoming an ever-more important topic, the event provides an invaluable networking space for computing companies and academics, while highlighting advances in accelerated computing, hardware-agnostic compilation, systems software, and more.
‘Home to major universities and research institutes, the leading high-performance computing centre in Poland, and many high-tech R+D centres, Kraków is an ideal location for the HiPEAC conference,’ comments Tomasz Kryjak, the general chair of HiPEAC 2026 and an assistant professor at AGH University of Krakow. ‘We look forward to welcoming international colleagues and introducing local computing experts to the HiPEAC network.’
‘The HiPEAC conference acts a bridge across the computing stack, amplifying the impact of research and nurturing future computing leaders,’ adds Koen De Bosschere, the coordinator of the HiPEAC project and head of the Department of Electronics and Information Systems at Ghent University. ‘As well as a rich technical programme, the conference is an excellent venue for networking, and it is a great pleasure to bring the computing systems community together in the historic city of Kraków.’
The conference kicks off on Monday, 26 January with a keynote talk by Michaela Blott (AMD) on enabling efficient artificial intelligence (AI) through silicon diversity, model optimization, agile AI stacks and other innovative approaches. Frank Karlitschek (Nextcloud) will set the tone on Tuesday, 27 January with a keynote on digital sovereignty. Lastly, on Wednesday, 28 January, Deming Chen (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) will explore AI and hardware co-design in his keynote talk.
In keeping with HiPEAC’s role as a bridge across the computing continuum, from edge to cloud to high-performance computing (HPC), and across hardware and software, both the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and Chips Joint Undertaking are represented in the workshop programmes. Workshops will guide participants through topics such as integrating novel technologies into complex, critical systems, orchestrating autonomous systems with agentic and generative AI, and adapting scientific applications for the exascale era. As usual, a number of workshops will discuss open-source hardware and software, including a dedicated workshop on open-source electronic design automation and a workshop on RISC-V for HPC.
The conference also provides a hub for academia to learn from industry, and vice versa. In addition to talks by companies at the frontier of computing systems, this year’s industrial session will feature a panel titled: ‘Powering innovation: How cutting-edge research results reach the market’, moderated by EE Times Editor-in-Chief Nitin Dahad, and featuring winners of the HiPEAC Technology Transfer Award. The 2025 cohort of award winners will be recognized in a ceremony during the conference.
Participants will also have ample opportunities to actively shape the future direction of computing in Europe. In contrast to previous years, the conference will feature an interactive workshop with presentations on the draft – rather than final – HiPEAC Vision 2026, with participants giving feedback on this key document for European computing research. DISCOVER-US workshops will highlight key research directions in distributed computing and swarm intelligence, before identifying frameworks and platforms with significant scaling potential. Meanwhile, a workshop on edge-cloud architectures, orchestration and standardization will present the recently launched Open Federated Edge-cloud Infrastructure Alliance and discuss opportunities for building sovereign, intelligent, and hyper-distributed edge-cloud systems in Europe.
Building on the success of new activities introduced last year – which resulted in at least two successful internships – this year’s STEM Student Day will promote in-depth conversations between students and companies, helping early-career researchers find their career path and helping companies identify the best talent for their roles. On Wednesday, 28 January, the HiPEAC Student Challenge will provide students the opportunity to showcase their work to peers and potential recruiters alike.
Once again, the conference will include a lively industry exhibition. Gold sponsors this year are Arm, ACK Cyfronet AGH, Huawei, and Stream HPC; the full list of sponsors may be found on the HiPEAC website. The conference media partner is EE Times.
View the full programme.
Social media hashtag: #HiPEAC26
