2020 HPC Market Summary and Forecast: Trends, Cloud Adoption, and Outlook to 2024

Hyperion Research, a leading consultancy in the HPC field, tracks quarterly HPC equipment sales in 28 countries and publishes over 85 research reports covering AI, HPC cloud, ML, DL, quantum computing, and HPDA, with a 2020‑11 update of the HPC market summary and forecast.

Report download: 2020 HPC Market Summary and Forecast Report

Report contents include:

HPC market summary and future forecast (2020‑2024)

HPC Cloud application business analysis (2020‑2024)

HPC Cloud potential driver analysis

HPC storage, network, and server analysis (file systems, vendors, media, networking)

Quantum computing business scenarios and domain analysis

Exascale system analysis (TOP500 scale, budgets, regional plans)

HPDA/AI market updates (domains and typical scenarios)

HPC Innovation Excellence Award and papers

The article focuses on the 2020 server market, overall market summary, and forecasts to 2024, as well as changes in traditional on‑premise HPC versus HPC Cloud, cloud adoption status, and driving forces.

Key market factors identified:

Product shipment delays: COVID‑19 caused factory closures and reduced production, especially in Q1 2020.

Revenue postponement: Delayed shipments pushed revenue into later periods, with customers ready to spend once the pandemic eases.

Order reduction: Limited face‑to‑face meetings and conference participation cut new business channels, causing an 11.5% drop in H1 2020.

Despite these setbacks, new opportunities emerged: high‑performance computing for COVID‑19 research and accelerated demand for public‑cloud‑based HPC.

2019 global HPC offline server market size was $13.7 B (Supercomputers $5.1 B, Divisional $2.6 B, Department $4 B, Workgroup $2 B). Server vendor market shares are shown in the accompanying charts.

In 2020, the offline HPC server CAGR fell from 8.7% to 6.8%; Hyperion projects the market to shrink to $1.8 B by 2024. Workgroup segment suffers the most (CAGR 0.4%), while Supercomputers, Divisional, and Department grow at 10.3%, 7.0%, and 3.9% respectively.

Overall revenue is expected to rebound in 2021 and reach $38.2 B by 2024, with storage showing the highest CAGR (8.3%). Middleware, applications, and services grow at 7.5%, 5.4%, and 3.4%.

Application‑level CAGR remains around 18% for domains such as life sciences, CAE, mechanical engineering, finance, EDA, geography, academic research, defense, and climate, outpacing on‑premise deployment.

Key customer considerations for HPC purchases remain price and performance, with increasing attention to security, faster CPUs, AI, and big‑data capabilities.

Budget constraints are the primary barrier to on‑premise HPC acquisition, followed by power/cooling and data‑center space.

Hyperion forecasts HPC Cloud spending to reach $9 B in 2024, with a growth rate 2.5 times that of offline HPC; overall HPC cloud expenditure is projected at $47 B, of which public cloud accounts for $8.8 B.

Drivers for moving HPC to the cloud include higher cost‑effectiveness, reduced queue times, broader hardware options, and better scalability. Cloud enables easier execution of AI workloads, with 20% of HPC users expected to run AI tasks in the cloud next year.

Simple summary:

The COVID‑19 pandemic slowed overall HPC CAGR; 2020 revenue dipped, but a recovery is expected in 2021, reaching $38.2 B by 2024, with storage growing fastest.

HPC Cloud is expanding rapidly (growth >2.5× offline), driven by data migration and strong demand from life sciences, CAE, engineering, finance, and other domains, all showing ~18% CAGR.

Customers increasingly value security, faster CPUs, AI, and big‑data capabilities, though price and performance remain core purchase criteria.

Budget constraints, power/cooling, and space are the main obstacles to on‑premise HPC deployment.

By 2021, about 20% of HPC workloads will require AI processing in the cloud, making AI and HPDA key competitive factors for future HPC systems.

Report download: 2020 HPC Market Summary and Forecast Report

Recommended reading:

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Edge and 5G Server Demand (download)

Smart Computing Center Planning Guide (download)

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