IBM dominates supercomputing list

A growing market
Supercomputers are at the high end of the much larger high-performance technical computing market, which is growing faster than the overall economy.

Market researcher IDC expects the market to expand from $6.1bn in 2004 to $7.6bn in 2008. Unit shipments will grow even faster, from about 112,000 in 2004 to about 176,000 in 2008, according to the forecast.

It's common for falling computer prices to mean that shipment growth outpaces revenue growth. But in the high-performance technical computing market, the trend is reinforced by the idea of computing clusters -- groups of low-end systems linked with high-speed networks.

Clusters, often using Linux running on computers with Intel or AMD processors, don't run some jobs as efficiently as more monolithic designs. But they work well enough at a low enough price that major customers are snapping them up. For example, of the seven Boeing supercomputers on this Top500, six are clusters using Xeon processors and one is a Cray X1.

And clusters let Dell, a company better known for its reliance on Intel and Microsoft research than its own engineering abilities, build the No. 5 system called Tungsten at the National Centre for Supercomputing Applications.

Clusters, which also can be assembled from higher-end parts, accounted for 281 of the 500 systems, for the first time crossing the halfway mark.

But some jobs aren't amenable to cluster approach -- one being decryption of coded communications. And there still is a large market for modest machines, such as those with four or eight processors churning away on jobs such as structural and stress analysis, said Bruce Toal, HP's marketing director of high-performance technical computing.

Big Blue is getting bigger in the market, nearing HP's top rank. From 2002 to 2003, IBM's share of the market grew from 28.2 percent to 30.2 percent with sales of $1.62bn. HP, with $1.79bn in revenue for 2003, shrank slightly from 33.6 percent to 33.5 percent.

Next in line in 2003 were Sun Microsystems, with $981m in revenue, Dell with $387m, Silicon Graphics with $224m, Cray with $157m and NEC with $67.5m, according to IDC.

HP likes to direct attention to the overall market share statistics. But it's clear the company still has ambitions for the Top500.

"It is a two-horse race," Toal said, conceding the loss to IBM on the current list, "but stay tuned for next time."