Supercomputers push record revenues in HPC server market

The high performance computing (HPC) technical server market saw revenues climb in the first quarter of 2012, with even bigger growth expected for the year as supercomputer spending booms.

The increase meant that revenues reached $2.4 billion at the start of 2012, up 3.1 percent from $2.3 billion in the first quarter of 2011.

According to IDC stats, the HPC server market will also beat its yearly revenues record set last year, with 7.1 percent growth to reach $11 billion in total.

While revenues were up in the first quarter of 2012, shipments were down 0.5 percent to 28,747 however, due to an increase in average selling prices.

The supercomputer segment was the star of the show in the HPC market, with revenues jumping 13.9 percent compared to the first quarter of 2011, reaching $976 million.

According to IDC analysts, governments are willing to splash out on supercomputers, which occupy the half a million dollar plus price bracket for the HPC market, because of the ability to increase competitiveness on an economic basis.

“HPC technical servers, especially Supercomputers, have been closely linked not only to scientific advances but also to industrial innovation and economic competitiveness,” said programme vice president for technical computing at IDC, Earl Joseph.

“For this reason, nations and regions across the world are increasing their investments in supercomputing even in today’s challenging economic conditions.

“We expect the global race for HPC leadership in the petascale-exascale era to continue heating up during this decade.”

In terms of vendors, HP and IBM remained almost equal in the overall HPC market, capturing 30.5 and 29.0 percent of revenue share respectively.

Dell remained in third place with 16 percent of overall revenue.