LSU’s HPX Project Joins Prestigious High Performance Software Foundation
March 30, 2026
The High Performance Software Foundation (HPSF), part of the Linux Foundation, has welcomed HPX, a runtime system and software library developed at LSU, as a new established project.
At LSU, HPX has been used to create complex models in astrophysics and to make faster storm surge and flood predictions.
“Becoming a member of HPSF is a badge of honor—it means you’re accepted by the community and that your project brings worldwide benefit,” said Hartmut Kaiser, a professor of computer science and engineering with a joint appointment in the LSU Center for Computation & Technology, who leads the LSU team. “This leads to visibility and credibility, but also, increased interest and support from industry, and potential funding for LSU students who will have more ability to find jobs by gaining experience and being part of a recognized HPSF project.”
HPSF and HPX are aligned in that both work to increase the adoption and portability of software for high-performance computing (HPC) systems. Major supporters of HPSF include industry leaders AWS, Microsoft, and NVIDIA, as well as LSU research partners Argonne National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, among others.
HPX is an open-source project with world-wide contributions. Its development has been led by LSU’s STE||AR Group since 2008. It brings a modern approach to parallel and distributed computing in C++, a widely used programming language, and will now expand HPSF’s portfolio of technologies to advance scalable, high-performance systems. HPX enables software developers to efficiently use available computing resources, from single nodes to large-scale distributed systems. It is the first open-source implementation of a new parallel execution model that focuses on overcoming key barriers to scalability such as latency, overhead, and resource contention (what runs first and for how long). HPX’s solution achieves improved parallel efficiency for a wide range of scientific and high-performance applications.
Professor Hartmut Kaiser leads the research group that develops HPX.
At LSU, HPX has been used to create complex models in astrophysics (“Octo-Tiger Rapidly Models Stellar Collisions”) and to make faster storm surge and flood predictions. Kaiser’s work to grow the user community around HPX was recently supported by a $1.5 million National Science Foundation POSE grant, enabling LSU and Southern University to team up to train dozens of new users.
“HPX’s inclusion reflects the continued importance of open collaboration in addressing the challenges of modern computing, particularly as systems grow more complex and distributed,” HPSF announced today. “[HPX] complements existing HPSF projects and strengthens the foundation’s ability to support next-generation workloads.”
Ownership of the HPX name recently passed from LSU to the Linux Foundation, which helps protect and promote the brand. By joining HPSF, the LSU team gains a seat on its technical advisory committee, which guides the development of high-performance computing worldwide.