Panels at Multicore World are fully interactive: each panel has a main topic, with 3-4 core questions.

The Moderator invites each panelist to give brief comments on the topic and questions. After that we focus on discussion among panelists and full interaction with the audience. Real debate. And lots of fun.

• PANEL 1 – SOVEREIGNTY – Monday 16 February 2026 – 4:25 pm – 5:15 pm
• PANEL 2 – CONVERGENCE – Tuesday 17 February 2026 – 4:15 pm – 5:15 pm
• PANEL 3 – ROBUSTNESS – Wednesday 18 February 2026 – 4:10 pm – 5:05 pm
• PANEL 4 – SCALING – Thursday 19 February 2026 – 3:35 pm – 4:20 pm

Panel 1 – “Sovereign capabilities” – Resilient data ecosystems and sovereign AI

Don Christie (Catalyst IT, New Zealand), Ilkay Altintas (UCSD, US), Manish Parashar (University of Utah, US), Deidre Cleland (ESNZ, New Zealand), Emily Casleton (Los Alamos National Labs, LANL, US).

Building resilient data ecosystems that balance open data / open science with sovereign capabilities, open infrastructure and global roadmaps.

1) Can we leave AI and infrastructure R&D initiatives to the Big Tech companies / hyperscalers?

2) AI regulation – an innovation engine or limitation? Designing the next decade of sovereign AI -architecting a national AI specialisation. European Union AI Act -how has been working so far?

4) What do you understand by “responsible computing”?

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Panel 2 – “Convergence HPC/AI/Quantum -without the hype”

Satoshi Matsuoka (RIKEN, Japan), Andrew Wheeler (HPE, US), Patricia Gonzalez-Guerrero (LBNL, US), Nathan DeBardeleben (LANL, US), Will Kamp (Kamputed, New Zealand).

1) Winners?

2) We are entering the era of hardware/software co-design -timeline? applications?

3) What’s China up to?

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Panel 3 – “System robustness” 

Karen Willcox (U Texas – Austin, US), Ben Mintz (ORNL, US), Alok N. Choudhary (Northwestern University, US), Ruud van der Pas (OpenMP, The Netherlands), Luca Carloni (Columbia University, US).

1) Where’s the next Crowdstrike coming from?

2) How safe is to integrate AI + platforms + systems?

3) Would you leave it to AI to “patrol” your systems, from Digital Twins to quantum reality?

4) Compare architectural choices in USA/Japan/Europe/UK

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Panel 4 – “Infrastructure scaling and resource consumption -responsible computing?” 

Dan Stanzione (TACC, US),  Taisuke Boku (HAIRDESC, Japan), Simon McIntosh-Smith (BriCS, UK), Jess Robertson (ESNZ, New Zealand), Dhabaleswar K. Panda (Ohio State University, US)

1) Scaling AI “responsibly” from the Lab to Society – Moving from raw compute to validated AI mission-ready models

2) Ethics and scaling of cyberinfrastructure

3) Energy -the next frontier

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