SC26 unites researchers, engineers, students, and industry professionals to share work and explore new technologies, with a focus on the networks and storage that underpin HPC.

As general chair, Hayden oversees about 1,500 volunteers and a network of contractors, guiding the conference program and attendee experience through collaboration and community involvement.

He has been named general chair of SC26, the 2026 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, which runs November 15-20 at Chicago's McCormick Place and is expected to draw more than 20,000 attendees.

Kevin Hayden, a senior network engineer at Argonne National Laboratory, has long supported HPC by maintaining critical network connections that enable data exchange across computing systems.

The hub will spotlight Illinois researchers with profiles, videos, and hands-on displays, including Argonne’s David Awschalom and Laura Schulz, and researchers Nick Chia, Ravi Madduri, and Arvind Ramanathan.

Hayden aims to highlight biomedical and cancer research at SC26, including panels with cancer researchers that connect computing advances to prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Hayden stresses that SC26’s success depends on collective effort, coordinating volunteers and contractors, and maintaining robust technical infrastructure.

Hayden began at Argonne in 1994 as an electronics fabrication technician, later moving into networking, and has volunteered at SC conferences since 2005, including serving as SCinet chair for SC20.

The conference theme, 'HPC Unites,' reflects HPC as a collaborative, society-facing effort and Hayden’s belief that computing can address shared challenges as technology integrates into daily life.

A central feature of SC26 is the Regional Tech Hub for Illinois, an immersive space highlighting regional research from Argonne, University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and UIUC, focusing on super intelligence, quantum technologies, high-throughput computing, and translational biomedical research.