The TOP500 lists all the machines according to their performance. A number of these machines are placed in centres which house more than one supercomputer. To see the relative importance of these centres, we have compiled the list of European TOP25 supercomputer centres given in Figure 1.
The supercomputer centres in the list are ordered according to the total Rmax performance each centre has installed. Only the machines from the TOP500 are counted. The list shows that the top centres in Europe are mainly research (16 out of 25) and academic (7). Industry is presented only once. There is one classified centre
Note that weather and climate research and aerospace research need large machines, and hence, large supercomputer centres. General research centres are well presented in the list too. Most academic centres have a vector supercomputer and a parallel machine from the same vendor, showing the slow transition that is taking place.
Some of the centres present have a long history in supercomputing, for instance KFA, ECMWF, CERN, but others, most notably the University of Edinburgh (EPCC), CSCS in Manno, are relatively newcomers to the supercomputing field.
The European centres are considerably smaller than the large US and Japanese centres. The US centres have, on the average, over 4 machines from the TOP500 class; and there are often much larger machines. The TOP25 European centres represent a much bigger portion of the European supercomputing power (62%) and house relatively more of the European machines (35%) than do the TOP25 centres world-wide. The European TOP25 centres have, on the average, 2 machines from the TOP500 class.
TOP20 Supercomputer Sites - Europe (Postsript File)