The Department of Informatics, Faculty of Science and Mathematics (FSM), Universitas Diponegoro held an international guest lecture on May 27, 2025, themed “Developing High Performance Computing (HPC) Skills to Open Doors for Opportunity” as part of the Visiting Professor program.
The lecture featured Worawan Diaz Carballo (Marungsith), Ph.D. from Thammasat University, Thailand, as the keynote speaker, moderated by Mr. Prajanto Wahyu Adi, M.Kom. Dr. Worawan is an expert in HPC, distributed systems, and the application of AI in agriculture. The event was held online via the Zoom platform. It was attended not only by lecturers and students from Universitas Diponegoro but also by academics from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Batangas State University, DOST-ASTI (Philippines), Kyoto University (Japan), and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).
In her presentation, Dr. Worawan began by explaining the importance of architectural and spatial thinking in developing HPC systems—a skill that goes beyond mere programming proficiency. She used the Minecraft game analogy to illustrate how students should envision and design complex, collaborative modular structures. This concept is highly relevant as today’s supercomputers have reached exaflop-scale performance, in some respects surpassing the processing capacity of the human brain.
Dr. Worawan also highlighted various real-world HPC applications, including the 3D simulation of the COVID-19 virus by NVIDIA’s supercomputer and the European Union’s Destination Earth project, which aims to build a digital twin of the Earth. She emphasized the urgency of digital sovereignty, citing the European Processor Initiative (EPI) and Japan’s achievement in independently developing the Fugaku supercomputer.
From an educational perspective, Dr. Worawan encouraged students to start exploring HPC early. She noted that access to supercomputers is now available for free through international science competitions and stressed that HPC skills are in high demand across disciplines such as physics, AI, bioinformatics, and environmental science. She also shared her experiences attending international HPC schools over the past five years and mentoring Thai students who went on to win international awards.
Dr. Worawan emphasized that HPC and AI have now become critical infrastructure, akin to electricity in modern life. However, she also acknowledged the emerging challenges brought by technological advancement, such as data privacy issues, AI ethics, and regulatory gaps that lag behind innovation. Therefore, mastering these technologies must become a top priority for the younger generation in the digital era.