HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into a multidisciplinary field that combines digital electronics, computer architecture, system software, programming languages, algorithms and computational techniques. HPC technologies are the tools and systems used to implement and create high performance computing systems. Recently, HPC systems have shifted from supercomputing to computing clusters and grids. Because of the need of networking in clusters and grids, High Performance Computing Technologies are being promoted by the use of a collapsed network backbone. The collapsed backbone architecture is simple to troubleshoot and upgrades can be applied to just a single router.

The term is most commonly associated with computing used for scientific research or computational science. A related term, high-performance technical computing (HPTC), generally refers to the engineering applications of cluster-based computing (such as computational fluid dynamics and the building and testing of virtual prototypes). Recently, HPC has come to be applied to business uses of cluster-based supercomputers, such as data warehouses, line-of-business (LOB) applications, and transaction processing.

High-performance computing (HPC) is a term that arose after the term “supercomputing.” HPC is sometimes used as a synonym for supercomputing; but, in other contexts, “supercomputer” is used to refer to a more powerful subset of “high-performance computers,” and the term “supercomputing” becomes a subset of “high-performance computing.” The potential for confusion over the use of these terms is apparent.

Because most current applications are not designed for HPC technologies but are retrofitted, they are not designed or tested for scaling to more powerful processors or machines. Since networking clusters and grids use multiple processors and computers, these scaling problems can cripple critical systems in future supercomputing systems. Therefore, either the existing tools do not address the needs of the high performance computing community or the HPC community is unaware of these tools. A few examples of commercial HPC technologies are the simulation of car crashes for structural design, molecular interaction for new drug design and the airflow over automobiles or airplanes. In government and research institutions, scientists are simulating galaxy creation, fusion energy, and global warming, as well as working to create more accurate short- and long-term weather forecasts. Also, one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, Roadrunner - located at DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, is being used to simulate the performance, safety, and reliability of nuclear weapons and to certify their functionality.