Reflections from SC25: From Outsider to Family, and Why 2025 Was Different

A few years ago, when I came to my first SC, I barely knew anyone. I’d walk the halls, look at the badges, listen to the conversations, and wonder if anyone would ever take a chance on a small company from Israel with a crazy idea about runtime-optimized compute.

Back then, I had no friends in HPC… only a dream and a lot of stubbornness.

This year, everything felt completely different.

A Community That Welcomes You Home

And this year, the community's response to our work reflected that acceptance. Today, when I walk into the conference floor, everywhere I turn, I see friends. Real ones. People who shaped HPC long before NextSilicon existed and who chose to believe in us along the way.

I spent time with leaders from government and national labs, industry, and research institutions, experts from aerospace, defense, energy, finance, and beyond. Across every sector, this passionate, boldly obsessive community continues to welcome and challenge us, and inspire what comes next.

One of the great joys of SC25 was reconnecting with so many familiar faces while meeting new ones who are shaping the path forward. I had the privilege of spending time with John Gustafson, the visionary author of Every Bit Counts. His book continues to change the way we think about numerical precision. His relentless curiosity and ability to challenge conventional thinking remind us why innovation in HPC never stands still. This included an almost surreal moment when John handed me his book, with a handwritten note calling me the most innovative computer architect he has known. I’m still processing that one. Thank you, John.

What amazed me most at SC25 was witnessing how this community continues to grow, diversify, and strengthen in ways that reflect the evolving landscape of high-performance computing. New ideas and voices filled every corner of the show floor. For me, these interactions are the heartbeat of the HPC world. This shift from a newcomer with a strange architecture to becoming part of the HPC family is the real story of SC25 for me.

A Year Where NextSilicon Truly Arrived

After we launched our technology this fall, something very noticeable happened: People showed up already knowing who we are, what Maverick-2 is, and why a completely new architecture is finally possible.

Not an “AI chip for transformer models.” Not a “GPU with a different twist.” A true general-purpose architecture - one that can run workloads that haven’t even been written yet.

That message resonated everywhere in St. Louis.

People told us, “I’ve been waiting for someone to break the many-core paradigm,” or “Finally, something that isn’t just chasing benchmarks but actually rethinking compute.”

Throughout the convention, it was impossible not to notice the attention NextSilicon received for our unique approach to acceleration. Our Intelligent Compute Architecture continues to resonate deeply with customers seeking alternatives to the compromises traditional solutions force them to make.

The conversations centered on three capabilities that matter most: Maverick-2 delivers breakthrough performance at half the power consumption of leading alternatives. It runs existing code without modification—no porting cycles, no vendor lock-in, just immediate acceleration. And because our architecture is software-defined and adapts in real-time, it future-proofs investments for workloads that don't even exist yet, those that will define the next decade of HPC and AI.

The message was clear: the industry is ready for hardware that adapts to software, not the other way around.

Recognition From the Community

This momentum extends well beyond SC. We were honored to receive two HPCWire Readers’ Choice Awards this year: Best HPC Server Product or Technology and Top New Products or Technologies to Watch.

Beyond the pleasure of winning, what I found most rewarding was learning who voted: researchers, engineers, and practitioners who spend their lives wrestling with the hardest computational problems on earth. For them to see Maverick-2 and say “this matters” - that means something. These accolades give us renewed purpose. It reflects both the journey NextSilicon has been on so far and a further push forward to energize us on the path we're headed on.

Looking Ahead to an Exciting Year

SC25 wasn’t about a booth, a demo, or a product announcement. It was the moment when, for the first time, I felt that the HPC community now sees NextSilicon not as an outsider but as a real partner in shaping what compute will look like for the next decade.

We have a big year ahead. Architectural leaps. New capabilities. More software “magic.” And a roadmap designed for researchers, developers, and workloads that don’t even exist yet. This coming year will be foundational, and I'm excited to share more as we move forward.

I already find myself looking forward to new breakthroughs, new collaborations, and the chance to reconnect with everyone next year at SC26.

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About the Author:

Elad Raz is the founder and CEO of NextSilicon, a company pioneering a radically new approach to HPC architecture that drives the industry forward by solving its biggest, most fundamental problems.