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ARCHER2 Weekly Newsletter

By ARCHER2 Service on February 4, 2026

Tags: newsletters 

ARCHER2 Capability Days: 3-5 March 2026

The sixth ARCHER2 Capability Days session will run from 3-5 March 2026. ARCHER2 Capability Days are a mechanism to allow users to run large scale tests on the system free of charge. The motivations behind Capability Days are:

  • Enhancing world-leading science from ARCHER2 by enabling modelling and simulation at scales that are not otherwise possible.
  • Enabling capability use cases that are not possible on other UK HPC services.
  • Providing a facility that can be used to test scaling to help prepare software and communities for future large-scale resources.

Capability Days are made up of two parts:

  • 0900-1900 GMT, 3 March 2026- pre-Capability Days session (“pre-capabilityday” QoS) to allow users to test scaling and job setup ahead of full Capability Day
    • Supports jobs 256-1024 nodes, 1 hour maximum run time
    • Jobs are uncharged
  • 0800 GMT, 4 March - 1400 GMT, 5 March 2026 - Capability Days session (“capabilityday” QoS)
    • Supports jobs 512-4096 nodes, 3 hours maximum run time
    • Jobs are uncharged

More information on how to submit jobs to these sessions can be found in the ARCHER2 documentation

Championing Green Digital Research Workshop - Day 0 of ARCHER2 Celebration of Science 2026

We are pleased to let you know the Championing Green Digital Research Workshop will take place at Sydney Smith - Doorway 1, Medical School, Teviot Place, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9AG, on Wednesday 18 March 2026, as the Day 0 of the ARCHER2 Celebration of Science 2026.

The majority of people involved in research using digital research infrastructure (DRI) want to understand and reduce the emissions associated with their research activities to have a positive impact on the path to net zero emissions from research. The term DRI includes a very broad range of infrastructure from personal devices (smartphones, laptops, etc.), through high end servers (HPC and HTC systems) to commercial cloud computing resources. Although most people want to take action, they are hampered by a lack of understanding of the scale and source of DRI emissions, uncertain on what they can do in their day-to-day work, and find it difficult when challenged by colleagues or acquaintances who may be sceptical about taking action. This workshop will provide insight into and expand on recent efforts to understand what skills are needed to empower researchers and other digital research technical professionals to make and advocate for positive impact in using DRI for research.

Registration is open now. Travel support application is due by 5 February 2026.

Further details

ARCHER2 Celebration of Science 2026

Poster abstract submission due 5 Feb 2026

We are pleased to announce that ARCHER2 Celebration of Science 2026 will take place on the 19th - 20th March 2026 in Edinburgh at South Hall, The University of Edinburgh.

Please register here to participate. The event is in-person and there is no registration fee.

What to expect at ARCHER2 Celebration of Science

ARCHER2 Celebration of Science is annual event that brings together the ARCHER2 user community to celebrate their scientific achievements on ARCHER2. You can explore the highlights of previous events here and view the science showcased in the previous years.

The two-day programme of ARCHER2 Celebration of Science 2026 will include:

  • Invited talks: a variety of talks from the invited speakers highlighting their impactful research using ARCHER2.
  • Poster programme: a platform for the ARCHER2 community to present and discuss their successes delivered on ARCHER2 through the lightning talks and the poster session. A Best Poster Prize will be awarded. - Call for Posters is now open!
  • Keynote: the keynote will be given by Professor Mark Parsons, Director of EPCC.
  • Panel Session: focuses on key topics for the ARCHER2 and UK research community.
  • ARCHER2 User Forum: learn about the latest service updates and engage directly with the ARCHER2 team.
  • Diversity Session: an interactive session to discuss the equality, diversity and inclusion challenges related to the delivery of HPC services.

Registration, and Call for posters is now open and poster abstract submission will be due by 5 February 2026. Full details here

Getting Started with ReFrame on ARCHER2

Free webinar, Wednesday 4th February 2026 15:00 - 16:00

This webinar will introduce you to ReFrame, a regression testing framework used across HPC systems, such as ARCHER2, to ensure software reliability and performance. We’ll walk through the basics:

  • How ReFrame works.
  • How to run simple tests.
  • How you can use it to make your work on ARCHER2 smoother and more reliable.

Full details and join link

Data Analysis and Visualisation in Python

Online 23 - 24 February 2026 09:30 - 16:30

Python is a general purpose programming language that is useful for writing scripts to work effectively and reproducibly with data.

This is an introduction to Python designed for participants with no programming experience.

This course covers:

  • Some basic information about Python syntax.
  • The Jupyter notebook interface.
  • How to import CSV files.
  • Using the Pandas package to work with data frames.
  • How to calculate summary information from a data frame.
  • Brief introduction to plotting.
  • How to work with databases directly from Python.

Full details and registration

GPU programming with kernels

Online 25 - 27 February 2026 10:00 - 16:00

This three-day course will provide an introduction to GPU computing with HIP aimed at scientific application programmers wishing to develop their own software. The course will give a background on the difference between CPU and GPU architectures as a prelude to introductory exercises in HIP programming. The course will discuss the execution of kernels, memory management, among other topics.

The course will not discuss programming with compiler directives, but does provide a concrete basis of understanding of the underlying principles of the HIP model which is useful for programmers ultimately wishing to make use of OpenMP or OpenACC. The course will not consider graphics programming, nor will it consider machine learning packages.

Note that the course is also appropriate for those wishing to use NVIDIA GPUs via the CUDA API, although we will not specifically use CUDA.

Full details and registration

Recently added known issues

The “Known Issues” page of the ARCHER2 Documentation https://docs.archer2.ac.uk/known-issues/ lists all current open known issues including a description of the issue, its symptoms and any work-arounds.

No recent issues

Upcoming ARCHER2 Training

Further details of upcoming training

We always welcome researchers wishing to present their work in a webinar - please contact the Service Desk if you would be interested in presenting your work.

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Recordings of past courses

Recordings of past virtual tutorials