NVIDIA announced that it is expanding its GPU Technology Conference (GTC) to address the increasing global demand for, and interest in, GPU computing to drive next-generation research and scientific discovery.

With more than 2,000 attendees from more than 40 countries, GTC 2010 was the second-largest supercomputing event of the year. Building on this success, NVIDIA is adding multiple regional GTC events across the globe, including events in the following locations:

• Singapore -- May 12, 2011
• Taipei -- May 19, 2011
• Tel Aviv -- May 30, 2011
• Tokyo -- July 22, 2011
• Beijing -- December 15-16, 2011

NVIDIA will leverage the Supercomputing Conference (SC) as the annual venue for GPU computing in the fall, and the North American GTC will become an annual spring event. GPU computing has grown tremendously at SC, as evidenced by the increasing number of technical papers, presentations, and hardware and software vendor participation. This year's GTC is being shifted from October 2011 to spring 2012.

Sponsors for the spring 2012 GTC include: Adobe, AMAX, Appro, Bull, CAPS, Dell, GE Intelligent Platforms, HP, Lenovo, Los Alamos National Labs, Microsoft, NextIO, PNY, Supermicro, Synnex, and SGI. The site provides a sign-up for regular email updates, including when the call for submissions is opened.

GTC is the world's most important event showcasing breakthroughs in computational science with the GPU (graphics processing unit). Last year's GTC offered thousands of attendees more than 280 hours of content intended primarily for computational scientists, engineers and developers who want to better understand how the GPU is transforming scientific, visual and technical computing. Attendance at the 2010 event grew more than 50 percent compared with 2009, and further growth is anticipated.