Conclusions

- The analysis of the data provide by the TOP500 report has led us to a number of conclusions concerning the state of HPC in the U.S. Some of these conclusions are:

• The U.S. is the clear world leader both as producer and as consumer of high performance computers.

• Both the U.S. and Japan seem to have mechanism is place which restrict competition in favor of the local products.

• MPPs account for more than a third of all installed supercomputers worldwide. Market penetration by MPPs in the U.S. is significantly higher, where MPPs constitute already now a majority of the installed supercomputers. A sizable portion of this market share (but by far not all) can be attributed to government spending and the HPCC program.

• Government installations dominate the market for large systems both in the U.S. and worldwide. Overall, the U.S. lags somewhat in industrial use of supercomputers.

• MPPs have made major progress in replacing PVPs in several industries. In the U.S. MPP usage in aerospace and in the oil industry is very high. MPPs appear to be considerably more widespread in industrial environments than commonly thought.

Generally the TOP500 has proven itself to be an extremely valuable tool, evaluating trends in the HPC market. Future releases of this report should enable the HPC community to track important developments much more accurately than in the past.