As early as 1986, at the dawn of HPC era, Professor Hans Werner Meuer, then director of the computer center and professor for computer science at the University of Mannheim (Germany), co-founded and organized the “Supercomputer Seminar” - a forum given to people interested in HPC and to provide a platform for professional and personal exchanges of ideas and experiences.

Since then, the event has evolved over the years into the annual International Supercomputing Conference and Exhibition, for short, ISC. Expert speakers, exhibitors, researchers, IT managers and enthusiasts come from all over the world, thus providing a unique platform for connecting the HPC community on a global scale.

In 1993, Professor Hans Werner Meuer started the TOP500 project together with Erich Strohmaier (previously at the University of Mannheim, currently at the NERSC) and Jack Dongarra (University of Tennessee and ORNL). In the TOP500 list, the most powerful computers in the world are listed and ranked by their performance on the Linpack benchmark. The list is generated and released twice a year. The first of these releases always coincides with the ISC Conference and Exhibition in June. The second one is presented in November at the SC in the USA.

ISC has grown to an ideal size with participant numbers approaching 2,000, ensuring productive sessions and interactions in a familiar atmosphere. Last, but not least, ISC has earned a well-deserved reputation for its after-hour social events that epitomize ‚Gemuetlichkeit‘.