This IDC study presents IDC's annual list of the top 10 HPC market predictions for the coming year. "2008 promises to be another year of strong growth in the worldwide HPC market, driven by the increasing penetration of clustered systems," said Steve Conway, IDC research vice president, Technical Computing. "Growth rates will be highest in the lower-end market segments, whose 'ease of everything' requirements will attract an increasing number of new products and services. And there will be greater-than-usual technology innovation and exploration as end users are increasingly forced to confront serious challenges related to the ramp-up of x86 multicore parallelism."

Areas of innovation and exploration will range from alternative processor technologies (i.e., accelerators) to software licensing models. Continued rapid increases in average system sizes and peak computing power will stimulate advances in storage capacity and capability, along with increased pressure to enhance interconnects and to keep power and space usage in check. The attractive size and growth rate of this market will heighten competition among vendors, resulting in more choices for user/buyers and a greater need to understand the available options.