If we restrict our view to the 133 supercomputers in Europe, Germany is with the number of installed systems (44%) as well as installed performance (39%) clearly ahead of France with 39%of the systems and 17%performance and ahead of Great Britain with 15%systems and 22%performance (Fig. 13.1 and 13.2), followed by Benelux, Scandinavia, Switzerland/Austria and Italy.
Compared to any measure-±economic strength, population±-Germany has relatively more systems and Italy has fewer systems than the average for Europe. The abundance of systems in Germany, may partially be explained by the presence of Siemens Nixdorf which does the marketing and sales for the Fujitsu and KSR machines.
The discrepancies between the number of installed machines and installed [tex2html_wrap2082] in the different European countries, is mainly due to the good performance of parallel machines for the algorithm that underlies the [tex2html_wrap2084] calculation. Large parallel machines are more commonly found in the UK and in France. In Germany there are a larger number of smaller parallel machines, notably the KSR systems.
Note that the total [tex2html_wrap2086] performance of all machines installed in Europe equals the sum of the [tex2html_wrap2088] performance of the numbers 1 and 2 on the world list.
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Broken down into manufacturers (Fig. 13.3 and 13.4) it is noticeable that the European companies Meiko (UK) with 2%and Parsytec (Germany) with 3%of installed systems play a minor part at present even in Europe. Market leader in Europe again is Cray Research far ahead with 42%of the systems and 39%of installed performance, followed by SNI with 11%of installed systems and 12%of installed performance. SNI profits from its extremely strong position in Germany where it comes shortly behind Cray Research. Third in Europe-and therefore also market leader of MPP systems-comes TMC (10%installed systems but 16%installed performance), almost head on with SNI. Forth and fifth are Intel and Kendall Square Research, both are American based MPP manufacturers with 8%respectively 6%of installed systems and 9%resp. 4%installed performance. Kendall Square Research had a very good start in Europe and was able to win several universities for their installations. The cooperation with SNI since December 1992 is meant to improve this already good position.
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Convex is a very good example that the era for mini-supercomputers is over; this is also true for Europe. Our first TOP500 of July 1993 still showed that Convex was much stronger represented in Europe with 10%of installed systems than it was worldwide. Not even half a year later this was reduced to 5%and moves now visibly closer to their worldwide 3%mark and thus disappears into unimportance. It is high time that an important decision with the already announced MPP system (Convex SPP1000/XA series with HP PA-RISC-nodes) is made for the future.
Looking at the application fields (Fig. 13.5 and 13.6) the predominance in the area of universities and major research institutions with 40%respectively 35%of the installed systems in Europe is clearly visible; compared to USA/Canada with 28%resp. 31%of this installation base, in Japan it is only 21%resp. 20%. But this should not deceive that Japan's research sectors have the most powerful supercomputers with 51%of the installed Japanese supercomputer performance; Europe has 48%of installed performance, USA/Canada have 42%in this segment.
In Europe the industry is rather weakly represented with 20%of installed supercomputers and only 13%of installed performance. Again, it seems to be a worldwide trend that the industry does not have the most powerful supercomputers. In comparison USA/Canada have 28%of the supercomputers in this hotly battled for marketsegment, but also with less powerful systems as the 12%of the installed performance show. In Japan 35%of the installed supercomputers are found in the industry but also with only a modest 15%of installed performance.
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