NEST 2.6.0 has been released as open source implementing the technology described in the article “Spiking network simulation code for petascale computers” by Susanne Kunkel et al. (doi:10.3389/fninf.2014.00078). NEST is the technological basis of the network simulator of the HBP. The article demonstrates that neuroscience can make full use of petascale supercomputers.