High-performance computing (HPC) in general involves combining computing power so that much better performance can be achieved than from a single desktop computer when solving significant problems. It should be emphasized here that in practice, and in this book, terms such as supercomputing and high-performance computing are often used interchangeably.

This three-part book begins with an introductory chapter on supercomputing and its brief history. The first part is on country-specific contributions. An overview of supercomputing in a few countries is provided, along with more detailed information on industrial applications of supercomputing in 11 select countries: Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Belgium, Korea, Spain, the UK, and the US. Interesting letters of testimony from the industry to the US National Science Foundation and perspectives on HPC at Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia National Laboratories are also included.

The second part contains case studies of HPC in the petroleum sector and at industrial firms such as Rolls-Royce Corporation, Porsche, Renault, and GE Research. There are engrossing chapters on sailboat hull design, the National Digital Engineering and Manufacturing Consortium (NDEMC) Midwest pilot for original equipment manufacturer (OEM) use of modeling and simulation in the US (a large-scale public-private partnership of the US government, OEMs, states, and universities for practical usage of HPC), geophysical imaging in HPC platforms in Spain, and HPC at France’s HydrOcean.

The third part is on industry developments and trends. There are just two chapters. One contains a view from International Data Corporation on HPC and high-performance data analysis. The other is the concluding chapter on the need for synergy between science and industry for promoting the growth of HPC.

The book includes contributions from 40 international experts in areas related to HPC. It is well written and highly informative even for HPC novices. The book showcases how supercomputing can be used to solve large-scale, real-life problems. It includes many illustrations in color as well as in black and white. The global impact of HPC on industrial applications is highlighted in the book, although the focus is on just 11 countries. Industrial use of supercomputers is not the usual focus of books on HPC. This book bucks the trend. HPC is now being widely used by many industries all over the world, although it is not all that apparent. The book clearly reveals that large-scale supercomputers, which play a very important role in computational science, are simply the only way to learn certain scientific truths. An interesting fact in the book tells us that Apple’s 2010 iPad 2 is as fast as a 1985-era Cray 2 supercomputer. Moreover, the Cray 2 was the size of a washing machine. The book contains many such interesting details. A variety of readers can benefit from this book, including laymen, political leaders, computer engineers, students, researchers, policy makers, and of course people from industry.