13/03/2025
Past Event

HANAMI High-Level Symposium | 2nd Edition

Following the first edition’s success, we are pleased to announce the second HANAMI High-Level Symposium on EU-Japan Collaboration in High-Performance Computing (HPC).   This event will bring together leading experts, policymakers, and researchers from Europe and Japan to discuss the latest advancements, challenges, and opportunities in HPC collaboration, with a special focus on scientific areas around climate, modelling, biomedical and materials science.   Date: December 8-11, 2025 Location: Chalet Hôtel Le Prieuré, Chamonix, France   The symposium will feature keynote speakers, panel discussions, and networking opportunities, fostering cooperation in cutting-edge HPC technologies and their applications across various industries.   Keynote Speakers   Materials Science Xavier Blase National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) Xavier Blase holds his PhD in theoretical Physics from the University of California at Berkeley,followed by a postdoctoral experience at EPFL, Switzerland. He is presently CNRS Research Director at Institut Néel, Grenoble, France. His research focuses on the electronic and optical properties of systems relevant to condensed matter physics, materials sciences and physical chemistry, with much emphasis on methodological developments in the field of ab initio modelling based on the first principles of quantum mechanics. He is the initiator of the FIESTA code (Bull-Fourier prize 2014) that implements the many-body GW and Bethe-Salpeter formalisms with Gaussian basis sets, implementing embedded techniques for the study of disordered organic systems in large environments. He received the 2008 CNRS silver medal. Kazuhiro Yabana Emeritus Professor, University of Tsukuba, and Visiting Professor, Graz University of Technology Kazuhiro Yabana obtained his PhD from Kyoto University in 1987. After serving as a postdoctoral researcher at Kyoto University, he joined Niigata University as an assistant professor in 1988. He moved to University of Tsukuba in 1999, and has been a professor, Center for Computational Sciences, University of Tsukuba, from 2004 to 2025. He retired from his professorship in 2025 and is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Tsukuba and Visiting Professor at Graz University of Technology in Austria. During his doctoral studies, he worked in the field of theoretical nuclear physics. In the mid-1990s, he pioneered real-time first-principles calculation for electronic dynamics in nanostructures and solids, applying a method developed in nuclear theory to solid-state density functional Hamiltonian. He currently works on cutting-edge topics in light-matter interaction, such as extreme nonlinear and ultrafast optics. He leads the development of an open-source software SALMON (Scalable Ab initio Light-Matter simulator for Optics and Nanoscience). Biomedical Science Ai Shinobu Premium Research Institute for Human Metaverse Medicine (WPI-PRIMe), University of Osaka Ai Shinobu obtained her PhD in physical chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. She held postdoctoral positions at the University of Tokyo, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and RIKEN, before joining the University of Osaka, where she is currently a specially appointed associate professor at the Premium Research Institute for Human Metaverse Medicine (WPI-PRIMe). Her research focuses on large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of biological systems, with an emphasis on developing simulation protocols to explore molecular processes over long timescales. She is particularly interested in understanding how mutations and other perturbations influence molecular structure, dynamics, and function. She collaborates closely with experimental and clinical researchers, integrating simulations with data from biophysical, biochemical, and clinical studies. Her work also contributes to interdisciplinary efforts aimed at connecting molecular-level insights to cellular processes and disease mechanisms. Mario Rüttgers Data-Driven Fluid Engineering (DDFE) Laboratory, Inha University, Incheon, South Korea Dr.-Ing. Mario Rüttgers is a visiting professor and postdoctoral researcher at the Data-Driven Fluid Engineering (DDFE) Laboratory, Inha University, Incheon, South Korea. He is supported by the Walter Benjamin Fellowship of the German Research Foundation (DFG). He received his doctoral degree from RWTH Aachen University in 2024, after conducting research at both the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), Forschungszentrum Jülich, and the Institute of Aerodynamics (AIA), RWTH Aachen University. Following his doctorate, he was a postdoctoral researcher at JSC funded by the HANAMI project, where he collaborated closely with researchers from RIKEN, Kobe, Japan. He continues to work with partners from RIKEN and JSC on the project Deep Neural Networks for CFD Simulations within the Joint Laboratory for Extreme Scale Computing (JLESC). His research focuses on the intersection of machine learning, numerical methods, and High-Performance Computing (HPC) for bio-medical and smart city applications. These applications range from patient-specific diagnosis and treatment of respiratory and hemodynamic diseases, to drag-based route planning for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in urban environments, and the optimal placement and operation of urban wind turbines for sustainable energy production. Beyond applications, he (co-)develops computational methods and tools, including HydroGym, an open-source framework that couples reinforcement learning with CFD for flow control, and urbanFlowGen, a tool that automates the setup of CFD simulations in urban environments on large-scale HPC systems. Climate and Weather Modelling Hirofumi Tomita Team Leader of the Computational Climate Science Research Team at RIKEN’s Center for Computational Science Dr. Hirofumi Tomita is a leading expert in computational climate science and atmospheric modeling, renowned for his pioneering work in geophysical fluid dynamics and large-scale climate simulations. He began his career as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Frontier Research System for Global Change (1999–2002), focusing on geophysical fluid dynamics modeling. From 2002 to 2010, at JAMSTEC’s Frontier Research Center for Global Change, he made significant advances in atmospheric model development and the study of tropical cloud disturbances. Since 2011, Dr. Tomita has served as Team Leader of the Computational Climate Science Research Team at RIKEN’s Center for Computational Science, where he leads innovative research on high-resolution climate modeling and simulation. Between 2014 and 2021, he also contributed as Deputy Project Leader for RIKEN’s Flagship 2020 (Fugaku) supercomputing project, fostering collaboration between application scientists and system developers. His work continues to advance the understanding of complex atmospheric processes and the development of next-generation climate models. Helene Hewitt UK Met Office Professor Helene Hewitt is a Met Office Science Fellow and visiting professor at the University of Southampton and University of Geneva. She is co-chair of the international Coupled Model Intercomparison Project which provides past and future simulations of climate from modelling centres around the world. She was a…
30/09/2024
Past Event

HANAMI High-Level Symposium

The HANAMI project, the EU-Japan collaboration about HPC, is delighted to announce the first HANAMI High-Level Symposium, which will take place in Barcelona between 13-15 January 2025.   An initiative under the umbrella of the Digital Partnership, funded by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, to strengthen ties and advance collaboration between the two superpowers in High-Performance Computing (HPC), Europe and Japan, HANAMI wants to promote scientific areas around climate, modelling, biomedical and materials science, involving European and Japanese institutes, and it will assist researchers in accessing supercomputers in Japan and Europe.   This event will focus on the EU-Japan Cooperation: Advancing High-Performance Computing for Solving Global Challenges. We will also have a High-Level Stakeholder event on Europe-Japan Strategic Dialogue on High-Performance Computing Collaboration.   We invite you to join leading scientists from HANAMI to discuss the following:   Climate Change: Using supercomputing to model climate systems, predict environmental changes, and develop sustainable strategies.   Next-Generation Materials: Accelerating the discovery and design of advanced materials through computational simulations for energy, electronics, and industrial applications.   Biomedical Challenges: Enhancing personalised medicine, drug discovery, and healthcare solutions by integrating high-performance computing with biomedical research.   This event will feature keynote presentations and interactive discussions, providing a platform to strengthen synergies and shape the future of science and technology through EU-Japan cooperation.   Invited speakers     Alfonso Valencia  Barcelona Supercomputing Center     Prof. Alfonso Valencia is an ICREA research Professor, Director of the Life Sciences Department of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Director of the Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute INB/ELIXIR-ES and coordinator of the data pillar of the Spanish Personalised Medicine initiative, IMPaCT. His research interest is the development of Computational Biology methods and their application to biomedical problems. Some of the computational methods he developed are considered pioneering work in areas such as biological text mining, protein coevolution, disease networks and more recently modelling cellular systems (digital twins). He participates in some of the key cancer-related international consortia. In terms of community services, he is one of the initial promoters of the ELIXIR infrastructure, founder of the Spanish and International Bioinformatics networks and former president of ISCB, the international professional association of Bioinformaticians. He is the Executive Editor of the main journal in the field (Bioinformatics OUP).     Emmanuel Barillot Institut Curie   Emmanuel Barillot is the Head of the Department of Computational Oncology at Institut Curie (U900 INSERM, in partnership with Mines ParisTech). He is also the Scientific Director of the institute Curie Bioinformatics Core Facility, which is an expert in biological data integration, omics data analysis, and support for precision medicine. He also holds a Chair in Cancer Genomics at the Paris Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (PRAIRIE). Emmanuel Barillot has published ~250 articles in bioinformatics, genomics, systems biology, cancer biology, translational and clinical cancer research, biophysics and computer science.       Mohamad Wahib RIKEN Center for Computational Science     Mohamed Wahib is a team leader of the “High Performance Artificial Intelligence Systems Research Team” at RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS), Kobe, Japan. Prior to that, he worked as a senior scientist at AIST/TokyoTech Open Innovation Laboratory, Tokyo, Japan. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Hokkaido University, Japan. His research interests revolve around the central topic of high-performance programming systems, in the context of HPC and AI. He is actively working on several projects including AI-based science, as well as high-level frameworks for programming traditional scientific applications.     Masaki Satoh The University of Tokyo/Yokohama National University   Prof. Masaki Satoh is a Professor at the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, Japan, and also serves as Vice Director and Professor at the Typhoon Science and Technology Research Center, Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Yokohama National University, through a cross-appointment. He specializes in atmospheric dynamics, tropical meteorology, climate change, and numerical modeling. A pioneer in global storm-resolving models, he has advanced weather and climate studies through the Nonhydrostatic Icosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM). His work emphasizes tropical cyclones, mesoscale systems, and satellite data analysis. Prof. Satoh has contributed as a Lead Author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and holds key leadership roles in Japanese and international meteorological organizations, including the Meteorological Society of Japan and the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society.     Koichi Yamashita Yokohama City University     Dr. Koichi Yamashita received his PhD from Kyoto University in 1982 supervised by Prof. Kenichi Fukui、worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. William H. Miller at the University of California, Berkeley for 1982-84, and moved to Okazaki in 1984 to join Prof. Keiji Morokuma’s group at the Institute for Molecular Science as a research associate in the theoretical research division. In 1991 he became a senior researcher at Institute of Fundamental Chemistry led by Prof. Kenichi Fukui. In 1994 he joined Prof. Kimihiko Hirao’s group as an associate professor in the Department of Applied Chemistry, the University of Tokyo; in 1997, he became a full professor, Department of Chemical System Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo, and retiring in 2018. He is Emeritus Professor at the University of Tokyo and Specially Appointed Professor at Yokohama City University. His research interests include quantum reaction dynamics, non-adiabatic processes in condensed phases and modeling of energy conversion processes, such as artificial photosynthesis and photovoltaics.     Peter Dueben European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts   Peter is the Head of the Earth System Modelling Section at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) developing one of the world’s leading global weather forecast models — The Integrated Forecasting System (IFS). He is also a Honorary Professor at the University of Cologne. Before, he was AI and Machine Learning Coordinator at ECMWF and University Research Fellowship of the Royal Society performing research towards the use of machine learning, high-performance computing, and reduced numerical precision in weather and climate simulations. Peter is coordinator of the WeatherGenerator Horizon Europe project that aims to build a machine-learned foundation model for weather and climate applications and has been…