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News and Articles    Wrapping up LUMI users’ year – positive feedback and a look ahead to 2026

Wrapping up LUMI users’ year – positive feedback and a look ahead to 2026

18.12.2025

The annual LUMI User Survey measures overall satisfaction with LUMI services, identifies areas for improvement, and addresses challenges users may face. In December 2025, Pekka Manninen, CSC’s Director of Science and Technology, shared an overview of the survey results during the LUMI User Support Team (LUST) virtual coffee break.

This year, the survey received a record number of responses – 154 users participated. Overall satisfaction with LUMI reached an all-time high, scoring 4.3 out of 5. Users expressed strong satisfaction with system stability and shorter queue times.

– We are glad to see these results. Thanks to our support team, system admins, and vendor partners, we’ve reached this level. Stability issues were the main bottleneck in the early years, but last year node availability was close to 100%, said Manninen.

The rise of AI

The survey revealed a notable shift: for the first time, AI users outnumbered physicists among the represented domains. The most prominent fields included machine learning and AI, materials science, computational chemistry, and computational fluid dynamics. Company usage also saw a slight increase compared to last year. Overall, the scientific domains reflected in the survey aligned well with actual system usage.

Computing resources remain key

When asked about the importance of LUMI’s services and components, computing power for LUMI-G and LUMI-C ranked high, along with documentation.

– Although LUMI is already a middle-aged system, users are still happy with its computing power. People appreciate the computing resources and documentation, which are core for us. We also received valuable feedback on how to improve documentation further. Some dissatisfaction was noted regarding software stacks, and this is already on our to-do list for early next year, Manninen explained.

LUMI will start 2026 with a system upgrade from 7–21 January, addressing software stack issues, particularly related to ROCm drivers. The upgrade should support ROCm versions up to 7.0.

– Looking at last year’s feedback, we delivered on our promises: shorter queues and improved software installation. Installation is now more versatile, and users seem to appreciate it, Manninen added.

Another major development for 2026 will be the uptake of the EuroHPC Federation Platform, which will unify user access and federated use across the EuroHPC sites. The first release of the EuroFP platform is set for late March 2026.

More workshops and webinars ahead

The survey showed increased satisfaction with the LUMI User Support Team and its partners, including assistance with software installation. LUMI training sessions also received excellent feedback, and plans for the 2026 training calendar are underway.

– There will be more workshops like the AI workshop, which was very well received. But we won’t forget traditional HPC users and basics: 101 courses on how to use the system, said Emmanuel Ory who is leading the LUMI User Support Team.

Ory reminded users that all training events are recorded and available in the documentation. The training course calendar will be updated at the start of 2026 – follow LUMI’s channels for more information.

– We thank everyone who took part in the survey. Your feedback is very valuable to us, and we will do our best to make LUMI even better for users, Manninen concluded.

See also:

LUMI User Support web pages