Supercomputers and supercomputing: The status of parallel calculations problem

The results of achievement in international sphere of ultrahigh-speed calculations (supercomputing) as of the period till June 2006 are described. It is shown that in a rigid competition between supercomputer architectures the victory is gained by a class of cluster supercomputers based on the concept of parallelism known as a model of cellular automatic devices. The intentions and perspective plans of supercomputer systems manufacturers in USA, Japan, Great Britain, China and other countries are considered. The generalizing conclusions describing the current status and prospects of ultra-high speed calculations sphere are formulated.