theGATE Festival at HLRS
22 May 2026What happens when science, technology, art, and society inspire one another?
theGATE is an initiative exploring exactly these intersections. From May 18–22, the High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) opened its doors for thought-provoking conversations, and I was delighted to join the festival’s eCulture Convention.
There was much to take away. From discussions about how physics can inspire art and how art can help us imagine what physics struggles to describe, to reflections on how we visualise phenomena that are impossible to see with the naked eye and that challenge the way we understand reality. From rethinking AI as African Intelligence, to conversations about why digital sovereignty and resilience matter for the future of knowledge. From digital monasteries and supercomputers in churches, to the computational pain experienced by cooling systems.
What stayed with me most was the atmosphere of curiosity, the sense that innovation does not only happen through faster machines or better algorithms, but also through dialogue, imagination, and the courage to ask unexpected questions.