US Government Offers New Advanced Computing Strategy Centered on Key National Priorities

Hyperion Research projects that between 2021 and 2026, worldwide installations of leading-edge exascale and near-exascale systems will total 28-38 new systems, worth an estimated $10-$15 billion, with China, the EU, and the United States each fielding 7 -10 systems in the six year interval. Being an exascale trailblazer can be expensive, with systems on the near horizon costing upwards of $500 million or more each, and only the most ambitious governments can commit to participating in these early rounds of exascale progress. However, as HPC price/performance moderates, a long-verified phenomenon in the HPC space, additional nations will also be looking to provide their domestic R&D base with access to exascale-class HPCs either developed domestically or procured from foreign sources.

According to a recent Hyperion Research study of 135 US quantum computing (QC) technology developers across the academic, commercial, and government sectors, selected financial indicators in the QC commercial sector have yet to settle into any easily characterized profile. For example, Hyperion Research estimates that while more than one third of the reporting QC suppliers in the survey had revenues of five million dollars or more in 2019, almost half that supplied revenue figures had revenues of less than $500 thousand or no sales in 2019. Likewise, survey respondents indicated that the appropriateness of QC R&D funding differ greatly across the corporate, government, and VC spaces, citing a need for more government funding while expressing concern that current VC funding for the sector may be excessive. Finally, when asked about a potential quantum winter, QC suppliers were much more pessimistic than the base of current and potential QC users, with about half of QC suppliers believing a quantum winter is somewhat or highly likely in the next decade, twice that of counterpart QC end users.