2026 IEEE International Symposium on Workload Characterization

July 25 - 29, 2027

Boulder, USA

Scope and Topics

IISWC 2026, to be held in Boulder, CO, USA, invites manuscripts that present original unpublished research in all areas related to the characterization and analysis of computing system workloads, including translational research related to production-oriented commercial systems. Work focusing on emerging technologies and interdisciplinary work are especially welcome. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) characterization of applications in traditional and emerging domains, characterization of system software and middleware, implications of workloads in system design, benchmarking methodologies and suites, and tools for computer systems. A broad range of topics can be found at the end of this CFP.

Submissions to IISWC can be made in one of the following two categories: (1) regular papers and (2) tool and benchmark papers. Authors are expected to use the IISWC 2026 submission template. The primary focus of regular papers (submission length: up to 10 pages, excluding references) should be to describe new research ideas supported by experimental implementation and evaluation of the proposed research ideas. The primary focus of tool and benchmark papers should be to describe the design, development, and evaluation of new open-source tools and benchmarks suites. Papers in the tool and benchmark category with relatively shorter length (6 pages) are welcome if the contributions can be well articulated and substantiated. However, all submissions in the tool and benchmark category have the flexibility of using up to 10 pages (excluding references).

Call for Papers

Authors are required to indicate the category of the paper as part of the submitted manuscript’s title. During the submission, we ask authors to add a prefix to the title indicating the type of the submission as follows: 1. regular papers: “Regular-TITLE” and 2. tool and benchmark papers: “Tools-TITLE”.

Topics of Interest include but are not limited to

Characterization of applications in domains
• Life sciences, bioinformatics, scientific computing, finance, forecasting
• Machine learning, deep learning, generative AI and LLMs, data analytics, data mining
• Cyber-physical systems, pervasive computation, and Internet of Things (IoT)
• Security and privacy-preserving computing
• High performance computing
• Cloud and edge computing
• Mobile computing
• Human-computer interaction (HCI)
• Search engines, e-commerce, web services, and databases
• Embedded, multimedia, real-time, 3D-graphics, gaming, rendering,gaussian splatting
• Blockchain services
• Augmented reality and virtual reality

Characterization of workloads for emerging workloads and architectures
• Accelerator-based computing
• Quantum computations and communication
• Serverless computing
• Near-threshold computing
• Near data processing architectures
• Neuromorphic and brain-inspired computing
• Transactional memory systems
• Biology (e.g., DNA sequencing) and chemistry workloads

Characterization of OS, Virtual Machine, middleware and library behavior
• Virtual machines
• Databases
• Graphics libraries, scientific libraries
• Operating system and hypervisor effects and overheads

Implications of workloads in system design
• Power-aware computing and carbon footprinting
• Dependable system and software architectures
• Security, privacy, performance
• Processors, memory hierarchy, I/O, and networks
• Design of accelerators, FPGAs, GPUs, CGRAs, etc.
• Large-scale computing infrastructures and facilities

Benchmark methodologies and suites
• Representative benchmarks for emerging workloads
• Benchmark cloning methods
• Profiling, trace collection, synthetic traces
• Validation of benchmarks

Measurement tools and techniques
• Measurement tools and software for carbon footprinting
• Instrumentation methodologies for workload verification and characterization
• Techniques for accurate analysis/measurement of production systems
• Analytical and abstract modeling of program behavior and systems

Paper Submission

Conference papers must be prepared according to the IEEE PES Authors Kit. Papers are limited to five pages and must be submitted through the official online submission system. Presentation of an accepted paper at the conference is required for publication in IEEE Xplore.

Important Dates

Conference Highlights

• IEEE Power & Energy Society flagship annual conference
• International technical paper presentations
• Poster sessions and Paper Forum sessions
• Best Conference Paper Sessions
• Technical committee meetings
• Industry and academic networking opportunities

Publication

Accepted and presented papers will be published in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library in accordance with IEEE conference publication policies.

Conference Website

IEEE PES General Meeting – More Power to the Future