Professor Oveter Kurz, Professor Moyer, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the
Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and especially of the Senator of
Science, Dr. Helene Gundelach, I would like to welcome you to Hamburg for the
24th International Supercomputing Conference. The Senator, as you have heard,
Dr. Helene Gundelach apologizes for not being here. She asked me to address this
conference. My name is Rolf Greve. I am the Director General for Research and
International Affairs of the Ministry of Science here in Hamburg. So she asks you
for understanding because she has to take part in an, let's say, a talk meeting of
the Senate of Hamburg. They have to deal with new items in the budget and, as you
know, as everybody of you know, money is not unimportant for research and
research infrastructure, so she has to be there to fight for us in Hamburg for
our money in the research budget. So we are very pleased that you have
selected Hamburg for the first time for your conference. I think this conference
is in Europe, one of the extremely important ones. High performance computing
is your theme. The Supercomputing Conference was co-founded and organized in 1986 by
Professor Hans Werner Moyer, then Director of the University of Mannheim. It was
originally called the Supercomputing or Supercomputer Seminar. And I think this
conference made a great development from then until today. So I think, Professor
Moyer, that we could say that you and your team did a great job. Thank you for that.
And in this context...
I think in this context, the sentence of Hermann Gemeiner fits very well, who
said, all great things in our world happen only because someone does more
than he has to do. So, ladies and gentlemen, the aim of this Senate is to prepare
Hamburg for its role as a scientific venue, and this naturally includes high
level research. For centuries, scientific research was based on two pillars, theory
and experiments. Today, I think you would agree, a third component has been added.
This is computer simulation. In many fields, research, especially top level
research, would now be inconceivable without computer simulations, and top level
research is now often only competitive with the help of supercomputers. Today,
numerical simulation on supercomputers is a core tool for research and development,
especially, as you know, in the natural sciences, in the life sciences, and in
engineering sciences, and in high tech oriented companies. But I think also the
humanities are now also taking a look on this technology. The availability of
supercomputers is an absolute prerequisite for many projects in top level research.
Direct access to supercomputers provides added expertise in many fields of research,
thus increasing competitiveness. In 2001, to provide access to supercomputer
capacities, Hamburg become involved in the establishment of the North German
Supercomputing Alliance, HLRN, with five other federal states in Germany that are
Berlin, Bremen, Mecklenburg, Forperman, Nieder-Sachsen, and Schleswig-Holstein. A new
system went online in 2008, and an additional increment and step will lead
to its completion in 2009. Not only technical collaboration plays a role here,
but particularly specialized scientific cooperation. Several of our universities
and non-universities research institutions hold leading positions
naturally, nationally, and in certain cases, internationally. I would like to
mention the Climate Campus, here as an example in Hamburg, for the fourth report
of the United Nations World Council on Climate Change, you know, IPCC. Scientists
from all over the world compiled their results, and researchers from Hamburg
were involved. An essential prerequisite for these activities was the German
Climate Computer Center, here in Hamburg. A unique high-performance computer with
the dedication climate research that is operated of a consortium that is
leaded by the University of Hamburg, the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, and
the Institute for Coastal Research of the GKSS Research Center-Gestacht, with
money of the federal state, the federal government, and the free and
Hasidic city of Hamburg. Ladies and gentlemen, in addition to all of the
interesting forums, lectures, and discussions that are awaiting you at this
International Supercomputing Conference, I hope that you have also some time to
get to know our beautiful city, that you will have an opportunity to take
perhaps a walk on the Elbe, or on the Alster, to discuss cultural sites, or
simply take a little shopping tour here in Hamburg. We, Hamburg, we are very proud
to have you here. I wish your conference good talks, fruitful discussions, and many
outcomes. Thank you very much.