Focused on advanced tech, such as quantum computing, the HPC AI Forum hopes to unite Africa’s leading technology minds.

Launching today, a new pan-African forum will focus on emerging computing topics, specifically artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC) and quantum computing.

The stated goal of the HPC AI Forum is to bring together researchers, HPC centres, academic institutions and tech leaders from across Africa to advance research and innovation into these scientific computing fields.

The forum, backed by data and AI technology company Flapmax, is also seeking to promote open collaboration about these subject areas across the region.

A statement by US-based Flapmax says that the forum “will serve as a platform for knowledge exchange and community building” and aims to “address the unique challenges faced by HPC centres in resource-limited settings”.

Among the themes that the forum will focus on are sustainability through energy-efficient computing, fair and ethical use of AI, innovation in AI, quantum computing and hybrid cloud, and skills development and community building.

Flapmax CEO, Dave Ojika, said: “As AI and HPC technologies rapidly evolve, it's critical that institutions in emerging regions have access to the latest tools and innovations. The HPC AI Forum is a key step toward ensuring that research centres across Africa and other developing regions can fully participate in and benefit from global advancements.”

He added that in addition to focusing on cutting-edge research technology, the forum will focus on sustainability and equitable access.

The statement details that participants in the forum will benefit from “perks”, which including satellite-based internet hardware and connectivity, Intel AI PCs with advanced neural processing units. They will also benefit from access to AMD HPC infrastructure, with 1TB memory for computationally and memory intensive research, and the potential for integration with Microsoft Azure.