Worldwide HPC Server Market Forecast Update, 2021-2026

Running HPC workloads in the cloud has undergone a fundamental shift over the past few years as CSPs have made a concerted effort to address the needs of HPC users, both for traditional HPC workloads as well as AI applications. Cloud adoption continues to rapidly increase for both current and new users, leading to a projection of end user HPC cloud spending to reach almost $9 billion by 2024. The spending for cloud resources by HPC end users primarily augments their spending for on-premise servers, as most users employ the cloud to complement, rather than replace, on-premise resources. There is much higher cloud adoption by workgroup users, suggesting that workgroup users are shifting some of their on-premise workloads to the cloud.

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.