A quantitative index for measuring the development of supercomputing

Current assessments of supercomputing (high-performance computing) primarily focus on system performance. Quantitative methods to measure the impact of supercomputing in a broad context have not been well developed. In this paper, the basic meaning of supercomputing development is analyzed. An evaluation index system for assessing the development status of supercomputing is constructed innovatively, and the SuperComputing Development Index (SCDI) is proposed to measure supercomputing development status. SCDI is a composite index combining various indicators into one benchmark measure that monitors and compares supercomputing development in the past years. This appears to be the first attempt to quantitatively measure the supercomputing ecosystem. As an example, the SCDI of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is obtained, which is based on the data collected from 130 research groups about and covers the period from 2006 to 2012. The results have demonstrated that the proposed evaluation index system is objectively reasonable. The constructed SCDI provides a scientific method to quantitatively evaluate the development status of supercomputing for institutions or organizations.