Worldwide HPC Market Predicted to Reach 38.1 Billion by 2018

Commercial and Industrial Spending to Drive Market

The worldwide HPC market will grow at a 4.6% compound annual growth rate over the next four years in spite of mixed market messages from vendors, according to Intersect360 Research’s newly released Worldwide High Performance Computing 2013 Total Market Model and 2014–18 Forecast.

Despite weakness in the public sector caused by government austerity programs, commercial vertical markets were strong enough to drive 2013 HPC revenue to $30.5 billion worldwide, 2.5% growth over 2012. The research firm predicts market recovery will grow the industry to $38.1 billion by 2018. “HPC is a primary tool for competition in areas ranging from product design, to monitoring business trends, to scientific research, to maintaining national security,” reports Chief Research Officer Christopher Willard, Ph.D. “The continuous demands of competition help maintain strong markets for high performance computing systems, even amidst apparent paradoxes. Our surveys show that HPC users are bucking the trend of reducing spending on servers, and research indicates modest growth for HPC in all economic sectors (industrial, academic, and government) over the next four years.”

A combination of market factors caused Intel, the leading processor vendor, to report strong growth in HPC, although the leading server vendors were down or flat. Willard explains, “Our model takes these factors into account and aligns the supply-side indicators with user-provided guidance, thereby providing a truer global view of the HPC industry than can be obtained by looking at any one single sector or vendor.”

The forecast reports notable market effects in the cloud, Ultrascale, and storage segments of the market, with cloud computing predicted to grow at an 18.6% CAGR for the forecast period, though this comes from a small basis in 2013. For the first time, cloud represents a full percentage point of the HPC market.

An Executive Summary of the report is available for download. The full report is available to customers of Intersect360 Research’s Advisory Service and members of the HPC500.

Source: Intersect360