[hpc-announce] Call For Papers - Hot Interconnects 2026

[Emilio Paolini]

Call for Papers
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The 33rd IEEE Symposium on High-Performance Interconnects, Hot Interconnects (HotI 2026), will take place virtually from Wednesday, August 19 – Friday, August 21, 2026
IEEE Hot Interconnects is the premier international forum for researchers and developers of state-of-the-art hardware and software architectures and implementations for interconnection networks of all scales, ranging from multi-core, on-chip interconnects to those within systems, clusters, data centers, and clouds. This yearly conference is attended by leaders in industry and academia.

HotI 2026 solicits original research papers addressing the design, analysis, implementation, and evaluation of high-performance interconnects and closely related technologies. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, interconnect architectures, network protocols, networking software, communication runtimes, congestion control, optical and emerging fabrics, accelerator and chiplet interconnects, disaggregated systems, and system–network co-design.

Topics of Interests
Systems software for communication
Novel and innovative interconnect architectures
Accelerator interconnects, e.g. NVLINK, Infinity Fabric
Network software/hardware designed for AI/ML workloads
Multi-core processor interconnects
System-on-Chip Interconnects
Chiplet-interconnect technologies such as UCIe and BOW
Advanced chip-to-chip communication technologies
Optical interconnects
Protocol and interfaces for inter-processor communication
Survivability and fault-tolerance of interconnects
High-speed packet processing engines and network processors
System and storage area network architectures and protocols
High-performance host-network interface architectures
High-bandwidth and low-latency I/O
Pb/s switching and routing technologies
Innovative architectures for supporting collective communication
Novel communication architectures to support cloud & grid computing
Centralized and distributed cloud interconnects
Requirements driving high-performance interconnects
Traffic characterization for HPC systems and commercial data centers
Software-defined networking and software overlay networks
Software for network bring-up, configuration and performance management (OpenFlow, OpenSM)
Data Center Networking


Submissions and Schedule
Paper abstract deadline:      May 9, 2026
Submission deadline:           May 15, 2026
Notification of acceptance:   June 26, 2026
Camera-Ready:             July 17, 2026


2026 Conference Theme - Scale-Up, Scale-Out, Scale-Across: Do they really differ?

Complex high-capacity training and disaggregated inference workloads are being scaled-across multiple sites, blurring the lines between contemporary scale-out and scale-up interconnection stacks. All the classical issues, such as  jitter, bursts, flow/congestion, long-tail latencies, etc. are amplified over long distances, requiring deliberate interventions across the full interconnection stack: algorithms, operational tools, communication frameworks, and network fabrics. This edition of Hot Interconnects will explore these interventions behind operationalizing interconnects over long, short and shorter distances.

Paper Format

This year we invite papers to be submitted either as regular (long) papers (up to 10 pages) or as hot topic papers (up to 4 pages). Hot topic papers could be positional papers, industry papers, or papers describing hot-off-the-press breaking research results and will be judged accordingly and independently from the regular papers.

- Papers need sufficient technical detail to judge quality and suitability for presentation. Submissions must conform to IEEE ethics standards https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://conferences.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/author-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-policies/__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!ak6ds80bif96eT2UzOFTdALC2fXbm0TtBcl_nUQRJb-Qa1DO0LjEj-OEBH5l81BjMMFoh1gMJ54FU67Qmk7z2_XVpcZVjwHNgrgJqA$  .

- Submissions should include title, author, abstract, and paper in double-column, see https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!ak6ds80bif96eT2UzOFTdALC2fXbm0TtBcl_nUQRJb-Qa1DO0LjEj-OEBH5l81BjMMFoh1gMJ54FU67Qmk7z2_XVpcZVjwFLdhNAAA$  for details.

- Papers will be submitted electronically through EasyChair https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://easychair.org/account/signin?l=6862298630892736964.1773934307.81820939__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!ak6ds80bif96eT2UzOFTdALC2fXbm0TtBcl_nUQRJb-Qa1DO0LjEj-OEBH5l81BjMMFoh1gMJ54FU67Qmk7z2_XVpcZVjwGh6-9V3Q$  and will undergo a single-blind review process.
- Regular papers: up to 10 pages (including technical content and figures), excluding references and any appendices. Appendices (if any) are limited to 5 pages (the limit might be extended upon committee approval in advance). Reproducibility appendices are encouraged but no official verification is provided by the HotI program committee.

- Hot topic papers: up to 4 pages (including technical content and figures) excluding references. Appendices are not allowed for hot topic papers.

- Materials other than the abstract, main paper body, and references will be read at the committee’s discretion.

- Authors may post their preprints in arXiv.org, TechRxiv.org, or any not-for-profit preprint server approved by the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board (PSPB), in Author’s employer’s website or institutional repository, or in Author’s personal website.

- Accepted papers will be submitted for inclusion into IEEE Xplore subject to meeting IEEE Xplore’s scope and quality requirements. 

- We plan to invite the best papers for an IEEE Micro Special issue submission which will be peer reviewed for further consideration. The special issue will require an additional 30% new content, and the page length for this special issue will be 8 pages.

- After a paper is accepted, the authors must follow the conference and [IEEE CPS guidelines] in publishing the paper. Review IEEE post publication policies.

Author/Reviewer Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Generated Text

IEEE Hot Interconnects follows IEEE's Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Generated Text https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/*ai-generated-content__;Iw!!G_uCfscf7eWS!ak6ds80bif96eT2UzOFTdALC2fXbm0TtBcl_nUQRJb-Qa1DO0LjEj-OEBH5l81BjMMFoh1gMJ54FU67Qmk7z2_XVpcZVjwG1ZXnpbw$  .
We allow the use of AI tools in the creation of submitted works.

Authors are responsible for all content submitted. If the precise usage of AI for the paper's technical content is not disclosed, or inappropriate usage is seen, such as ghost citations, HotI reviewers may choose to desk-reject a paper. HotI reserves the right to revoke publication after acceptance of any submissions that do not follow these guidelines.

IEEE Hot Interconnects follows IEEE's Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Generated Text for reviewers. Public AI platforms may not be used for the evaluation of manuscripts under review in order to avoid breaching confidentiality.