Are you a Bachelor’s or Master’s student in computer science, mathematics, engineering or physics? Do you have a strong computing profile, and would you be interested in working on advanced computing projects at CERN during the summer of 2026? If so, we have just the solution for you: the CERN openlab summer student programme!

CERN openlab is a unique public-private partnership that accelerates the development of cutting-edge computing technologies for the worldwide LHC community and the wider scientific research field. Through CERN openlab, CERN collaborates with leading technology companies and research institutes.

Over nine weeks (June-August 2026), the CERN openlab summer students will work with some of the latest hardware and software technologies, and see how advanced IT solutions are used in particle physics. The students will also participate in a series of lectures prepared for them by computing experts at CERN, in addition to the main lecture series for CERN summer students. Visits to the accelerators and experimental areas are also included in the programme.

CERN is a place where dizzying IT challenges abound. The CERN openlab summer student programme may lead to follow-on projects in your home institute, or may even inspire you to become an entrepreneur in cutting-edge computing technologies.

The applications for the 2026 edition of the CERN openlab summer student programme are now open until the 26th of January 2026 at 23h59 (CET, Geneva timezone). Discover how to apply on the CERN openlab summer student programme page. 

You can find more information on the CERN careers website and the FAQs page.

You can find out all about the work carried out by previous CERN openlab summer students on the CERN openlab Zenodo community.

Follow us on our LinkedIn to watch some testimonials from previous CERN openlab summer students that will be shared throughout the next few months. 

This summer, CERN openlab once again welcomed a new cohort of bright young minds to its research environment. The 2025 CERN openlab summer student programme brought together 37 outstanding students from 31 nationalities, selected from a pool of more than 3,800 applicants from universities around the globe.

Over the course of nine weeks, these students immersed themselves in cutting-edge projects at the intersection of science and technology. For the first time, CERN openlab partnered with CERN’s Next Generation Triggers project, which focuses on developing innovative approaches to data acquisition and processing. Eleven students in this year’s programme worked directly on Next Generation Triggers projects, helping to address the technological challenges of tomorrow’s particle-physics experiments.

Other students took part in a wide range of projects spanning computing, data science, machine learning, and high-performance systems. The programme also featured the continued involvement of ideas4HPC, a partnership designed to encourage innovative thinking and collaboration between female students, researchers, and industry experts.

Beyond their individual projects, the students participated in a series of lectures given by CERN experts and invited speakers, covering topics from theoretical physics to cutting-edge computing technologies. This unique learning environment fostered both technical growth and the development of valuable professional skills.

The 2025 programme concluded with the traditional Lightning Talks: short, dynamic presentations where each student shared their project’s objectives, methods, and results. This year’s Lightning Talks were opened by the CERN openlab CTO team, and featured a special musical performance by summer student Najla Sadek, who sang Frank Sinatra’s My Way in honour of the students’ journey throughout the past nine weeks.

Following the talks, students received their certificates during a handout ceremony led by the CERN openlab CTO team, with a celebratory cocktail reception afterwards, a fitting close to an intense and inspiring summer of collaboration, innovation, and discovery!

As these talented young students return to their universities and future careers, they carry with them not only the technical skills acquired at CERN, but also the spirit of international cooperation and shared purpose that underpins all of CERN’s work. By providing hands-on experience in frontier technologies and fostering a diverse, global community, the CERN openlab summer student programme continues to play a vital role in shaping the next generation of leaders in science, engineering, and computing.

Discover all the Lightning Talks, with corresponding presentations, on indico:

• Day 1 – https://indico.cern.ch/event/1543700/
• Day 2 – https://indico.cern.ch/event/1543702/

Applications for the 2026 CERN openlab summer student programme will open in November 2025.

On Monday 11 and Tuesday 12 August, the 2025 CERN openlab summer students will present their work at the public “lightning talk” sessions.

Students will each give a five-minute presentation, introducing the audience to their project, explaining the technical challenges they have faced and describing the results they have found during their projects. Each student will have the opportunity to showcase their progress while also informing the audience about different cutting-edge IT projects they have been working on.

Over nine weeks (June-August), the CERN openlab summer students have been working with some of the latest hardware and software technologies. 37 students were part of this year’s openlab summer student programme. During their time at CERN, the summer students, alongside working on their projects, attended a series of lectures given by IT experts on advanced CERN-related computing topics.

Join us on 11 and 12 August to discover more about the exciting projects the students have been working on.   

You can follow the live webcasts by following the links below:

• Session 1
• Session 2

Last week, CERN openlab took part in the European Strategy for Particle Physics (ESPP) 2026 update meeting held in Venice from 23 to 27 June. The event brought together experts from across the global high-energy physics (HEP) community to shape the long-term roadmap for the field.

Maria Girone, head of CERN openlab, presented the summary of discussions from the Computing track within the Facilities Working Group (Maria Girone, Giovanni Iadarola, Gonzalo Merino, and Sinead Ryan). The talk highlighted key themes emerging from the community’s contributions, including:

• the evolution of processor architectures,
  
• integration of high-performance computing (HPC) in HEP,
  
• sustainability and energy efficiency,
  
• development of AI facilities,
  
• specialized analysis infrastructures,
  
• and interdisciplinary collaboration with industry.
  

CERN openlab’s long standing impact was also recognized during the meeting’s opening session, with CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti highlighting its significant contributions to CERN’s activities over the past 20 years.

CERN openlab was also featured in Tommaso’s Boccali talk on ‘Computing in HEP: how we got here and needs for the next decade’, highlighting the initiative between CERN openlab and WLCG for high-performance computing integration in high-energy physics.

You can read the white paper on ‘Strategy for HPC Integration in WLCG/HEP’ here: https://zenodo.org/records/15032799 

This summer, 37 outstanding students from universities across the globe have been selected, from more than 3800 applicants, to take part in the 2025 CERN Openlab Summer Student Programme. The programme offers a unique opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students to gain hands-on experience in scientific computing, high-performance systems, and software engineering at one of the world’s leading research institutions.

Over the course of 9 weeks, students will collaborate with CERN experts on cutting-edge projects across domains such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, quantum technologies, data acquisition systems, and advanced software development. These projects are central to the technological backbone of CERN’s experimental research and provide students with the chance to contribute meaningfully to ongoing scientific efforts.

As part of their experience, students will also participate in an intensive lecture series delivered by CERN professionals. Covering a broad range of technical and scientific topics – from software and computing infrastructure to accelerator and detector physics – these lectures aim to enrich students’ knowledge and expose them to key challenges in modern-day scientific research. You can follow the lectures here: Indico 2025 CERN openlab summer student programme lectures.

This year’s edition also includes a new collaboration with the Next Generation Triggers (NGT) project at CERN. Several students will focus on projects contributing directly to this initiative, which is exploring innovative technologies to enhance real-time data processing in future high-energy physics experiments.

The programme is a gateway to real-world scientific computing and a springboard for future careers in research, engineering, and technology development. Students not only gain practical experience, but also become part of a diverse and dynamic international community.

This year, the programme is additionally supported by the ideas4HPC initiative, which has funded one of the selected female students, continuing its mission to promote gender diversity and excellence in the field of high-performance computing.

CERN openlab at PASC25: Advancing Scientific Computing Through Collaboration

CERN openlab was present at this year’s Platform for Advanced Scientific Computing Conference (PASC25), held in Brugg, Switzerland, from June 16–18. The event brought together researchers and industry experts from around the world to explore advances in scientific computing, high-performance systems, and emerging technologies.

Matteo Bunino, Computing Engineer at CERN openlab, co-authored and co-presented three research posters across two days of the conference. These contributions showcased CERN’s collaborative efforts in applying advanced computing to real-world scientific challenges:

• ‘itwinai: Enabling Scalable AI Workflows on HPC for Digital Twins in Science’: https://pasc25.pasc-conference.org/presentation/?id=pos113&sess=sess150
  
• ‘Enabling Lattice QCD Normalizing Flows in HPC Infrastructures’: https://pasc25.pasc-conference.org/presentation/?id=pos110&sess=sess149
  
• ‘Interactive Visualization of High-Energy Physics Events via Nvidia Omniverse’: https://pasc25.pasc-conference.org/presentation/?id=pos120&sess=sess150
  

These works reflect ongoing R&D efforts within the interTwin project and CERN openlab, especially in developing AI-driven workflows, and digital twin technologies that can operate efficiently on HPC infrastructure.

Maria Girone, Head of CERN openlab, also played an active role at PASC25. She co-authored and co-presented a poster session (‘itwinai: Enabling Scalable AI Workflows on HPC for Digital Twins in Science’) and co-chaired a minisymposium focused on emerging trends in high-performance computing and scientific workflows. 

The symposium fostered discussions around AI integration, scalable computing architectures, and the future of scientific software development – key areas of strategic importance for CERN openlab.

Maria also played a role in a minisymposium, titled ‘Breaking the HPC Silos for Sustainable Development’ which was co-organised by Marie-Christine Sawley, Maria Girone, Maria-Grazia Giuffreda, and Florina M. Ciorba, all co-founders of the IDEAS4HPC Swiss chapter of the Women in High-Performance Computing (WHPC). 

IDEAS4HPC aims to promote diversity and inclusion of women and other under-represented groups in High-Performance Computing (HPC) and large-scale computing. In this minisymposium, there was also a presentation by Asal Mehrabi, a 2024 CERN openlab summer student funded by IDEAS4HPC. 

CERN openlab’s involvement at PASC25 underscores its continued leadership in developing and testing advanced computing solutions for science. Through active participation in conferences like PASC, CERN openlab strengthens its collaboration with academic and industrial partners and helps shape the future of computing in research.

CERN openlab participated in the ISC High Performance 2025 conference in Hamburg, contributing to key discussions on the future of scientific computing. This premier event brought together experts from across academia and industry to explore the latest developments in high-performance computing (HPC), AI, and advanced infrastructure.

As part of the programme, CERN openlab co-organised a Birds of a Feather (BoF) session titled “Shaping the Future of Scientific Digital Twins: Tales from Physics, Climate Research, and Data Centre Operations.” The session was led by Maria Girone, Head of CERN openlab, and Matteo Bunino, computing engineer at CERN openlab. It featured perspectives from multiple disciplines and aimed to spark dialogue and build community around digital twin technologies in science.

Maria Girone also presented in the BoF session “HPC & Cloud Convergence,” contributing CERN’s experience in combining high-performance on-premises resources with cloud services to support large-scale scientific workloads. In addition, Maria took part in the session “Towards a Strategy for Future Research Infrastructures,” contributing with CERN’s insight into the evolving needs of large-scale scientific research facilities.

Beyond the sessions, ISC 2025 provided many valuable moments to connect with CERN openlab’s current collaborators, including  E4 Computer Engineering, Pure Storage, Intel and Micron, and to explore potential new partnerships with industry and research institutes. These discussions reaffirmed the shared mission of accelerating computing for science through innovation, collaboration, and strategic alignment.

Today, on International Girls in ICT Day 2025, CERN openlab celebrates the importance of empowering young women to pursue careers in information and communication technology (ICT).

At CERN openlab, we firmly believe that today’s young women in ICT will become tomorrow’s leaders, driving innovation and pushing the boundaries of computing research and development.

Over the years, we’ve been dedicated to supporting young women’s participation in ICT by providing the essential tools, mentorship, and opportunities they need to grow and thrive in their careers.

Thank you to Maria Girone, Eva DaFonte Pérez, Mélissa Gaillard, Gehad Salem and all the women who are part of the CERN penlab story and help us shape the future of computing R&D.

Since 2023, our partnership with ideas4HPC has allowed us to further strengthen our commitment by sponsoring a female summer student each year, supporting the next generation of talented women who will shape the future of computing and scientific discovery. Discover more about ideas4HPC on https://elle-it.ch/ and here.

Through our summer student programme, we actively promote diversity and inclusion by encouraging young women to pursue careers in ICT. The CERN openlab summer student programme started in 2003. Some data throughout the years (the first year with recorded data is 2008):

Between 2008 and 2010, 15% of the CERN openlab summer students were women*.

Between 2021 and 2024, that percentage raised and 35% of the CERN openlab summer students were women*.

For the 2025 CERN openlab summer student programme, 49% of the selected CERN openlab summer students are women*.

Join us in recognizing the incredible potential and contributions of young women in ICT—today and every day!

*The CERN HR database only allows to record gender as male or female.

“Pure Storage and CERN openlab are working together to research how the European Laboratory for Particle Physics will use flash storage to support future research needs.

Pure Storage has announced a partnership with CERN (the European Laboratory for Particle Physics) which aims, through the CERN openlab collaboration, to accelerate the development of cutting-edge ICT solutions for the Large Hadron Collider. The partnership will explore how Pure Storage’s DirectFlash technology can support the needs of future scientific research.”

Read the full press release on: https://www.purestorage.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/pure-partners-with-cern-openlab-for-scientific-research.html

Back in January, the ODISSEE project, funded by the European Union, was launched. This project aims to develop innovative technologies and methodologies to process the unprecedented volume of scientific data produced by research infrastructures such as CERN’s HL-LHC and SKAO.

CERN openlab is pleased to be involved in the ODISSEE project (https://odissee-project.eu/). This initiative brings together leading research institutions, industry partners, and technology innovators to address complex data-driven challenges through state-of-the-art computing and advanced analytics. By leveraging cutting-edge machine learning techniques and scalable digital infrastructures, ODISSEE aims to enhance scientific research and drive transformative solutions across multiple sectors. CERN openlab’s involvement underscores our commitment to fostering collaborative innovation and pushing the boundaries of research in an increasingly data-intensive world.

Read more on: https://odissee-project.eu/launch-of-eu-funded-project-odissee/