Abstract
High performance computing systems are used to develop software for wide variety of domains including nuclear physics, crash simulation, satellite data processing, fluid dynamics, climate modelling, bioinformatics, and financial modelling. The TOP500 website (http://www.top500.org/) lists the top 500 high performance computing systems along with their specifications and owners. The diversity of government, scientific, and commercial organizations present on this list illustrates the growing prevalence and impact of HPCS applications on modern society.