Updated Worldwide HPC Server Market Status and Forecast, 2019–2024, Including Covid-19 Impacts

The cloud market for HPC has undergone a fundamental shift in the past two years. Historically, user sites treated cloud resources primarily as additional to on-premises HPC systems to address peaks in workload demand. Generally, funds for HPC cloud resources were separate from the HPC system budgets and were not commonly critical components in future system procurement planning. Over the past two years, that paradigm has changed dramatically. Hyperion Research has conducted a number of studies that suggest cloud is becoming a major component in future resource planning for many HPC user sites. Many sites are now weighing cloud next to on-premises procurement strategies and altering the size and timing of future on-premises deployments to increase their budget for cloud resources.

HPC in the cloud has undergone significant growth in the past few years, attracting new users and more fully supporting existing users. Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) are key to this growth as they are taking a stronger interest in the HPC market, focusing on delivering capabilities that more closely match on-premise systems in performance, security, and in some cases, price. This major shift in the sector has prompted Hyperion Research to revise its HPC cloud forecast to include an additional $1 billion in 2019, up from its original $3 billion.