31 October – 4 November 2026 | Athens, Greece

The 59th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO 2026) took place in Athens, Greece, from 31 October to 4 November 2026, bringing together the international computer architecture community.

One of the leading international conferences in computer architecture, MICRO provides a forum for researchers and industry professionals to exchange ideas and present advances in microarchitecture and computing systems.

Dimitris Gizopoulos and the MICRO 2026 organizing team

This year’s edition marked several important milestones. MICRO returned to Europe after more than a decade and was held in Greece for the first time as an in-person event. It was also the largest edition in the symposium’s history, setting new records for submissions, accepted papers, workshops, tutorials, and international participation. Another major highlight was the introduction of MICRO’s inaugural Industry Track, strengthening the connection between academic research and industrial innovation.

DARE’s contribution to MICRO 2026

DARE and its partners made significant contributions to the symposium through scientific presentations, workshops, demonstrations, and industry support. DARE’s industry partners also supported the event: Axelera AI participated as a Gold Sponsor, while Openchip and Codasip presented demonstrations at the Euro-RV workshop.

The General Chair of MICRO 2026 was DARE’s Dimitris Gizopoulos, from the University of Athens. The symposium was organised through the efforts of his Computer Architecture Laboratory research group, whose research activities are a part of the DARE project.

Reflecting on the event, Dimitris shared his experience:

“The ‘legendary MICRO edition in Athens’, the 59th IEEE/ACM MICRO 2026 Symposium, was an unforgettable experience for me and my team at the Computer Architecture Lab of the University of Athens. It was exciting to welcome almost 1,000 computing professionals from 33 countries, who gathered at the InterContinental Athenaeum Hotel in the heart of Athens from 31 October to 4 November.

The first-ever in-person MICRO in Greece (apart from the two Zoom editions broadcast from Athens during the pandemic) and only the sixth edition held in Europe broke every record: submitted and accepted papers, submitted and accepted workshops and tutorials, international attendance, engagement, and emotions. It was an incredible symposium that became a reality thanks to the dedication and generosity of the organising committee, the guidance of the steering committee, and the energy of the authors, speakers, and attendees.

The MICRO community was fortunate to receive support from fifteen corporate sponsors across three continents. European participation was also stronger than ever, representing the largest share among the continents at this year’s MICRO.

I am very proud, both as General Chair of MICRO and as Principal Investigator of a participating research laboratory, of the flagship EuroHPC-funded project DARE. DARE contributed through high-quality research papers, an excellently organised workshop that I had the pleasure of opening (Euro-RV, held for the first time), and the participation of Axelera AI, a DARE project partner, as one of the corporate sponsors.

I am personally grateful to everyone who contributed to MICRO 2026 here in our home city of Athens.”

DARE’s Principal Investigator Osman Unsal inducted into the MICRO Hall of Fame

Another important highlight for the DARE community was the induction of DARE’s Osman Sabri Ünsal and Adrian Cristal, from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), into the MICRO Hall of Fame.

This distinction recognises their sustained technical contributions to the symposium over many years and highlights BSC’s longstanding commitment to advancing computer architecture and high-performance computing research. Established in 2008, the MICRO Hall of Fame is an honorary distinction recognising researchers who have published eight or more papers at the IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture.

Osman reflected on the significance of this year’s edition and DARE’s participation:

” It was great to see MICRO, one of the leading conferences in computer architecture, take place in Europe, in Athens, this year. The event also highlighted the strong contributions of DARE partners, both to its organisation and its scientific programme. Many DARE partners presented their research papers and took part in the Euro-RV workshop, contributing to its technical sessions and panel discussion, as well as to the main conference programme. It was a great opportunity to showcase our collective work and engage with the international computer architecture community.”

Euro-RV – the European Workshop on Hardware-Software Co-Design for Future RISC-V Architectures.

A major DARE-related event at MICRO 2026 was Euro-RV workshop, organised by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and imec as part of the DARE initiative, Euro-RV brought together researchers and industry representatives to discuss developments in RISC-V architectures and hardware/software co-design.

The workshop featured opening remarks by Dimitris Gizopoulos and a keynote presentation by Dionisios Pnevmatikatos.

Its programme combined technical talks, paper presentations, industry demonstrations, and a panel discussion, providing a platform for exchanging research results and exploring opportunities for collaboration between academia and industry.

Two demonstrations presented by DARE industry partners highlighted practical developments and tools for RISC-V systems:

  • Pre-silicon GPP Development on Emulators and Simulators, presented by Carl Shaw (Codasip).
  • TURBO: Tuning Utilities for RISC-V Benchmarking and Optimization, presented by Harry van Haaren (Openchip).

The workshop also featured a panel discussion moderated by Osman Sabri Ünsal (BSC), with the participation of: Babak Falsafi (EPFL), Georgios Goumas (NTUA), Manu Perumkunnil (imec).

The workshop was supported by an organising team comprising Julián Pavón Rivera, Nitesh Narayana GS, Negin Mahani, Sourav Sengupta, Arindam Mallik, and Pablo Balbi.

Through its combination of research presentations, industry demonstrations, and open discussion, Euro-RV provided an opportunity to strengthen collaboration across the European RISC-V ecosystem.

Euro-RV Workshop organizing team

DARE research contributions at SPICE 2026

DARE researchers also contributed to SPICE – The 2nd Workshop on Sparsity: The Key Ingredient from HPC to Efficient LLMs, which explored the role of sparsity in improving the efficiency of high-performance computing and large language models.

Two research contributions from BSC were presented:

  • Cross-Layer Execution under Sparsity: Joint Exploration of Fusion Depth and Spatial Granularity, presented by Hajar Falahati (BSC).
  • SQuaRE: Sparsity-Quantization Resource-Efficient Optimization, presented by Nezam Rohbani (BSC).

These contributions highlighted research into techniques for improving computational efficiency through sparsity-aware execution and optimisation.

Tutorial: It’s the Memory, Stupid!

Another highlight of the MICRO 2026 programme was the tutorial “It’s the Memory, Stupid!”, focusing on memory systems and their impact on performance in high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI).

The tutorial was organised by Petar Radojković (BSC), in collaboration with INESC-ID and Intel.

Petar commented:

“I’m happy to see such strong interest in memory systems and their impact on performance. ‘It’s the Memory, Stupid!’ was one of the best-attended tutorials at MICRO 2026, bringing together 50 participants from academia and industry. BSC, INESC-ID, and Intel have once again shown what we can achieve when we work together!”

Looking ahead

MICRO 2026 was an important milestone for the international computer architecture community and a valuable opportunity for DARE and its partners to showcase their research, strengthen industry–academia collaboration, and engage with leading experts in the field.

From scientific contributions and technical demonstrations to workshops, tutorials, and industry support, DARE’s participation reflected the project’s commitment to advancing European computing technologies and strengthening the European RISC-V ecosystem.

Stay tuned for the conference proceedings and see you next year at MICRO 2027!