Isambard Summit 2026¶
Draft programme
This programme is a draft and is subject to change. Speakers, titles, timings, and abstracts may be updated before the event.
The Isambard Summit 2026 is a two-day event bringing together researchers, engineers, and industry partners to share progress and discuss challenges in AI and high-performance computing. Click any talk title to read the full abstract in the detailed programme.
Rosalind Franklin Room - Day 1¶
Session 1: Welcome and Keynote | 10:00–11:15¶
| Time | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10:00 | Simon McIntosh-Smith | Bristol Centre for Supercomputing | Welcome and introduction to Bristol Centre for Supercomputing |
| 10:10 | TBC | UK Government | TBC |
| 10:20 | Fred Manby | Iambic | Building the NeuralPLexer4 Co-Folding Model |
| 11:05 | Richard Gilham | Bristol Centre for Supercomputing | Conference tracks and dinner |
Refreshments | 11:15–11:45¶
Session 2: Large Language Models and AI Research | 11:45–13:00¶
| Time | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11:45 | Pontus Stenetorp | University College London | UK-LLM after three years: Reflections and a road map for the future |
| 12:10 | Aleksej Zelezniak | King's College London | AI for Synthetic Genome Design |
| 12:35 | Huw Day | University of Bristol | Understanding Partitioned Learning Dynamics |
Lunch | 13:00–14:00¶
Session 3: AI for Health | 14:00–15:15¶
| Time | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14:00 | Aldo Faisal | Imperial College London | Nightingale-AI |
| 14:25 | Jon Lees | University of Bristol | AI as a Bridge Across Cellular Scales |
| 14:50 | Gregory Verghese | PharosAI, King's College London | Towards Transparent AI in Computational Pathology: Multimodal Concept Learning for Clinical AI |
Refreshments | 15:15–15:45¶
Session 4: AI for Advanced Materials | 15:45–17:00¶
| Time | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15:45 | Matthew Foulkes | Imperial College London | Neural Wavefunctions for Materials Chemistry and Physics |
| 16:10 | Gabor Csanyi | University of Cambridge | MACE force field models for the periodic table |
| 16:35 | Panel | — | SME focus panel - title to follow |
Close of Day 1 | 17:15¶
Rosalind Franklin Room- Day 2¶
Session 5: Keynote | 09:00–10:15¶
| Time | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 | TBC | Bristol Centre for Supercomputing | Welcome |
| 09:05 | Jeffrey S. Vetter | Oak Ridge National Laboratory | Keynote — TBC |
| 09:50 | David Topping | University of Manchester | Partnerships at Scale: HPC, AI and the Future of Environmental Decision-Making |
Refreshments | 10:15–10:45¶
Session 6: AI Security | 10:45–12:00¶
| Time | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10:45 | Jason Gwartz | AI Security Institute | An Introduction to the AI Security Institute and AI Safety Research on Isambard |
| 11:10 | Yalli Du | King's College London | Evaluating the cooperative behaviour of systems of generative agents |
| 11:35 | Sid Black | AI Security Institute | Auditing games for sandbagging detection |
Lunch | 12:00–13:00¶
Session 7: AI Research and Closing Address | 13:00–15:00¶
| Time | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13:00 | Zilin Wang | University of Oxford | Learning to Drive in New Cities Without Human Demonstrations |
| 13:25 | Eghbal Rahimikia | University of Manchester | Re(Visiting) Time Series Foundation Models in Finance |
| 13:50 | Bidipta Sarkar | University of Oxford | Evolution Strategies at the Hyperscale |
| 14:15 | Eltayeb Ahmed and Anya Sims | University of Oxford | Reinforcement Learning for Mid-Training on Unstructured Text |
| 14:40 | — | — | Closing Address |
Close of Day 2 | 15:00¶
Annex- Day 1: SME Focus in Partnership with NVIDIA¶
Running in parallel with the main programme.
Part 1 | 11:45–13:00¶
| Time | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11:45 | TBC | Bristol Centre for Supercomputing | Welcome, Bristol Centre for Supercomputing introduction and aims for the day |
| 12:00 | Jessica Driscoll | NVIDIA | Accelerating AI Innovation: The NVIDIA Inception Program and the Supercomputing Ecosystem |
| 12:20 | Jamil Appa | Zenotech | TBC |
Lunch | 13:00–14:00¶
Part 2 | 14:00–15:15¶
| Time | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14:00 | Wasil Rezk | BeyondMath | TBC |
| 14:25 | Karin Sevegnani | NVIDIA | From Infrastructure to Impact: Sovereign AI Development on Isambard AI |
Annex- Day 2: Parallel Sessions¶
Running in parallel with the main programme.
Parallel Session 1 | 10:45–12:00¶
| Time | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10:45 | Tim Santos | Graphcore | What changes when you go from 1 node to 'lots' |
| 11:10 | Ian Johnson | HPE | Securing Containerised AI Kubernetes Workloads on Isambard AI with Slingshot |
| 11:35 | Duncan Roweth | HPE | AI Inference with NVIDIA Dynamo on HPE's Slingshot Network-based Systems |
Lunch | 12:00–13:00¶
Parallel Session 2 | 13:00–15:00¶
| Time | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13:00 | Pili Mayora and Dan Lenton | AI Security Institute | AISI Research Platform: Isambard technical workflows |
| 13:25 | Sadaf Alam | Bristol Centre for Supercomputing | AIRR Status and AI Data Facility Update |
| 13:50 | David Africa | AI Security Institute | Consistency Training |
| 14:45 | — | — | Reconvene in main hall |
Workshops- Day 1¶
Workshop 1: Research Data Mobility in the Age of AI | 14:00–15:15 | Learning Room 3¶
Organisers: James Womack and Laura Shemilt
In computational research and AI workflows, data moves through complex pipelines across multiple digital research infrastructures (DRIs). Varied access control mechanisms, network configuration, and software on DRIs may inhibit automated data movement. This workshop explores how federated identity systems and shared protocols can enable seamless data mobility across DRIs. First, we present our National Federated Compute Services (NFCS) NetworkPlus project, which surveys operator and end-user requirements for data movement and evaluates data centre APIs with federated identity as solutions. Second, a panel discussion with NFCS team members and guests, with Q&A on our project and discussion of the data mobility challenges in the age of AI.
Panel:
- Chris Edsall (University of Cambridge)
- James McClung (VAST Data)
- Lynsey Smart (University of Bristol)
- Pontus Stenetorp (University College London)
- Stig Telfer (StackHPC Ltd)
- James C. Womack (Bristol Centre for Supercomputing)
Workshop 2: Interactive AlphaFold Tutorial | 15:45–17:00 | Learning Room 3¶
Organiser: Wahab Kawafi
This hands-on workshop introduces AlphaFold for protein structure prediction using JupyterHub notebooks on the Isambard AI GPU cluster. Participants will explore protein–ligand binding design for drug discovery through interactive exercises and visualisations. Attendees will gain practical skills in leveraging high-performance computing resources for computational biology. No prior AlphaFold experience required.
Workshops- Day 2¶
Workshop 3: DigiEngBio Accelerator | 10:45–12:00 | Design West — The Assembly (off site)¶
AI and digital technologies are transforming Engineering Biology (EngBio), speeding up data analysis, improving design processes, and enabling predictive models that drive precise innovation. DigiEngBio will accelerate innovation at the interface of AI and EngBio by leveraging Isambard AI to build an integrated, accessible, digital EngBio design platform that will:
- Dramatically speed up research in protein, polymer, and whole-genome design
- Democratise access to advanced AI tools for the academic and industrial EngBio community
- Enable scalable, data-driven innovation unlocking applications across sectors
Workshop 4: Distributed PyTorch Tutorial | 10:45–12:00 | Learning Room 2¶
Organiser: Anna Price
This workshop introduces how to dispatch a distributed training job on Isambard AI, bridging the gap between training on a single node and distributing jobs across multiple nodes. Learning objectives:
- Learn to launch a distributed PyTorch job
- Understand how Slurm, MPI, and NCCL interact
- Understand how MPI and NCCL are dispatched and the modules required for them
- Combine the above to make use of the high-speed network (Slingshot)
Distributed training tutorial | Workshop materials
Workshop 5: TREs with Kubernetes on Isambard AI | 10:45–12:00 | Learning Room 3¶
Organiser: Jake Watson
Research projects working with sensitive health data — such as records from UK Biobank — must operate within Trusted Research Environments (TREs) that meet strict governance requirements. Running these workloads on shared AI infrastructure presents a challenge: how do you maintain the isolation and security a TRE demands on a multi-tenant system? The FRIDGE project, funded through DARE UK, addresses this by using Kubernetes to provide a secure, isolated deployment platform that meets TRE requirements while giving researchers access to large-scale compute.
Workshop 6: Porting Containers between DRI | 13:00–14:15 | Learning Room 2¶
Organiser: Richard Gilham
Do you use containers in your research? Do you need to move your research between different systems? Would a managed container registry improve your research? This workshop provides an opportunity for a facilitated discussion on experiences, challenges, and opportunities, in support of the National Federated Compute Service (NFCS) Federated Container Registry project.
| Time | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13:00 | Chris Edsall | University of Cambridge | Introducing the NFCS Federated AI Container Project |
| 13:10 | TBC | — | TBC |
| 13:30 | — | — | Discussion |
Workshop 9: Cybersecurity — What's it all about? | 13:00–14:15 | Learning Room 3¶
Organiser: Thomas Green
Cybersecurity in digital research infrastructure is central to a modern interconnected world where infrastructure can be exposed to many threats, from nation-state actors to inquisitive individuals. This workshop will explore and encourage discussion on the methods that can be used to protect infrastructure — exploring threats, methods to evaluate protection, and what steps can be taken. Using the criteria in the NCSC CAF framework as a guide, the workshop will help answer questions such as "What are the challenges to assess larger digital research infrastructure assets?". At the end of the workshop, attendees will have discussed and understood some of the most recent cybersecurity topics.
Posters¶
| Presenter | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Yi Liu | University of Bristol | MR-KG: A knowledge graph of Mendelian randomization evidence powered by large language models |
| Lon Barfield | University of Bristol | Delivering and managing Digital Research Infrastructure: Lessons from the Joiner platform |
| Liam Berrisford | University of Exeter | Enabling LFRic on Isambard 3: A Reproducible AArch64 Software Stack Using Spack |
| Tanya Kushwahaa | Cardiff University | From Prototype to Production: Agentic AI Tools for Natural Language-Driven HPC Management |
| James Brock | University of Bristol | Forest-Chat: Adapting Vision-Language Agents for Interactive Forest Change Analysis |
| Babatunde Oyewo | University of Cambridge | Automated Encryption of Kubernetes Block Storage for Trusted Research Environments (TREs) |