High Performance Computing Collaboratory at MSU

What High Performance Computing Collaboratory at MSU does

The High Performance Computing Collaboratory (HPC²) is a coalition of seven member institutes and centers at Mississippi State University that advances computational science and engineering using high-performance computing. The center originated in 1990 as the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation — the only NSF ERC focused directly on HPC — and graduated from NSF funding in 2001 to operate as a self-sufficient research unit. HPC²'s primary deliverables are supercomputing cycles, storage, and domain expertise across fluid dynamics, structural mechanics, geospatial analytics, cyber systems, genomics, and vehicular systems. It operates three flagship clusters: Orion (Dell/EMC, ~5.5 PetaFLOPS), Hercules (Dell PowerEdge, ~3.01 PetaFLOPS, expanded in 2025), and Atlas (Cray CS500 with USDA-ARS, 565 TeraFLOPS), backed by approximately 20 PB of high-performance disk and 9 PB of tape storage.

HPC²'s underlying technology spans proprietary software (unstructured grid generation, the SOLSTICE integrated simulation environment, the original MPICH MPI implementation co-developed in 1992–1994), capital-intensive hardware (166,000+ cores, HDR/NDR InfiniBand, MissiON regional optical network connecting to Internet2), and a multi-disciplinary talent pool of approximately 345 personnel. It was the longest-running academic presence on the TOP500 list, appearing 16 times between June 1996 and November 2019 and reaching 60th worldwide and 4th fastest in US academia.

Revenue flows from federal research grants and contracts (DoD HPC Modernization Program, NASA, NOAA — for whom HPC² manages Orion and Hercules — USDA-ARS, NSF, DOE, USACE ERDC), supplemented by an Industrial Affiliate Program of 16 companies including General Motors, Stellantis, Nissan, and Northrop Grumman, and direct engineering services through the CAVS Extension facility in Canton, MS. Go-to-market is sales-led and grant-driven rather than commercial; HPC² does not publish pricing and resources are allocated through collaborative research agreements and sponsored programs. Customer concentration sits heavily in federal agencies, with automotive OEMs and defense contractors as the principal industrial counterparties.

Name

High Performance Computing Collaboratory at MSU

Legal name

High Performance Computing Collaboratory (HPC²) at Mississippi State University

Website

https://hpc.msstate.edu

Company type

Private

Founded year

1990

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

The High Performance Computing Collaboratory (HPC²) is a Mississippi State University coalition of seven research institutes providing ~15 PetaFLOPS of supercomputing, storage, and computational science expertise to federal agencies, universities, and industrial partners.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

High Performance Computing Research Services

NAICS

Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services (5416), Space Research and Technology (927)

SIC

Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731), Electronic Computers (3571)

akta.pro primary industry

Public Research Universities with National Laboratories/Big Science Facilities (EDAHAAAJ)

akta.pro secondary industries

Engineering & Technology Institutes (Comprehensive) (EDAHAEAA), High-Performance Computing (HPC) Cluster Nodes & Systems (HDACABAH), HPC Clusters & Scale-Out Compute (x86/ARM) (HDACAOAB), AI Networking for Clusters (InfiniBand/Ethernet/RDMA) (HDAAAAAE)

Keywords

• High performance computing
• Supercomputing infrastructure
• Computational research services
• Computational science engineering
• Academic research computing

Headquarters

HQ city

Starkville

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. Federal Research Grants and Contracts: Primary funding from federal agencies including National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Energy, NASA, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Navy, and other government entities. Research expenditures of approximately $12 million per year.
2. Industrial Affiliate Program: 16 industrial affiliates provide funding and collaborative research relationships. Companies including General Motors, Northrop Grumman, and others participate in sponsored research.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Operates a coalition of research institutes and centers providing high performance computing infrastructure and computational science/engineering research services. Delivers supercomputing capacity (Orion, Atlas, Hercules clusters totaling ~15 PetaFLOPS), storage infrastructure (~20 PB disk plus 9 PB tape), high-speed networking, and multi-disciplinary research expertise in computational fluid dynamics, structural mechanics, geospatial analysis, genomics, and advanced vehicular systems to federal agencies, industry partners, and academic institutions.

Product overview

HPC² is a coalition of member institutes and centers at Mississippi State University advancing computational science and engineering through high performance computing. The organization's core product is its portfolio of supercomputing clusters (Orion, Atlas, Hercules) providing approximately 15 PetaFLOPS of combined computing power for research. Additional offerings include a Computational Engineering graduate program and research services through affiliated centers including CAVS (vehicular systems), GRI (geosystems), CCI (cyber innovation), IGBB (genomics/biocomputing), and others. Storage infrastructure includes approximately 20 petabytes of high-performance RAID-enabled disk systems.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Orion Supercomputer
• Atlas Supercomputer

Quantifiable outcome

• Space Shuttle STS-95 simulation completed in 2 days (normally takes months)
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature7 records

Partnerships

17 partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.

• ClimavisionminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2026Weather enterprise partnership joining MSU's Energy Resilience and Innovation Hub. Climavision provides 29 weather radars, full weather model suite, and next-generation weather technology for research collaboration.
• General MotorscoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2026EcoCAR Innovation Challenge partnership - MSU one of 20 universities in GM track. Students transform Chevrolet Blazer EV with autonomy sensors, autonomous driving systems, and vehicle-to-everything connectivity.
• StellantiscoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2026EcoCAR Innovation Challenge partnership - MSU participates in Stellantis track alongside GM track universities.
• U.S. Department of Defense - HPC Modernization ProgramcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 1990Long-standing partnership with DoD through the High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP). PET (Productivity Enhancement and Technology Transfer) program brings HPC expertise from universities to support DoD researchers. Includes four Major Shared Resource Centers.
• U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research ServicecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration on Atlas supercomputer (Cray CS500) with 11,520 Intel Xeon Platinum 8260 cores, 8 NVIDIA V100 GPUs, 565 TeraFLOPS peak performance. Partnership for agricultural research computing.
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMSU manages Orion and Hercules supercomputing systems on behalf of NOAA. Orion provides 5.5 PetaFLOPS and Hercules provides 3.01 PetaFLOPS for NOAA research operations.
• NASAcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMultiple NASA collaborations including research at Stennis Space Center, shuttle simulation support, remote sensing research through GRI, and space-related computational projects.
• U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborative effort through ISER (Institute for Systems Engineering Research). Facilities connected via MissiON network to Mississippi Optical Network.
• Airbus Helicopters Inc.minorOthersPartnership for EcoCAR competition providing on-site training on designing, fabricating, and testing custom wiring harnesses at Airbus Helicopters plant in Columbus.
• NissancoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDirect engineering support through CAVS Extension at Canton facility near Nissan manufacturing plant. Automotive industry collaboration for product development.
• Ohio Supercomputer CenterminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUniversity partner in DoD PET program - one of 12 universities and 4 industrial partners in the PET team led by MSU.
• University of TexasminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUniversity partner in DoD PET program - climate/weather/ocean modeling technical area lead.
• University of TennesseeminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUniversity partner in DoD PET program - computational environment technical area.
• University of Alabama at BirminghamminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUniversity partner in DoD PET program - CFD and CSM technical areas.
• University of HawaiiminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUniversity partner in DoD PET program - user training coordination.
• SAICminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerIndustrial partner in DoD PET program - forces modeling and simulation technical area.
• Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerIndustrial partner in DoD PET program supporting HPC modernization efforts.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC): SDSC at UC San Diego operates Expanse and other HPC systems as part of the NSF XSEDE/access programs. Comparable in academic HPC services, federal funding, and multi-disciplinary research portfolio.
• Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC): PSC is a joint CMU/University of Pittsburgh HPC center operating Bridges-2 and other systems, with NSF-funded consortia serving federal and academic researchers. Highly comparable as an academic HPC service provider with shared infrastructure mission.
• Purdue Rosen Center for Advanced Computing (RCAC): Purdue RCAC operates Bell, Anvil, and other HPC clusters serving federal and academic researchers, with strong aerospace and automotive industry ties. Comparable in academic HPC hosting and industrial research partnerships.
• Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC): TACC is a leading academic HPC center at UT Austin operating large-scale supercomputers (Frontera, Stampede) for federal and academic research, with similar multi-agency federal funding and industrial affiliate programs. Directly comparable in mission, scale, and funding model.
• National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA): NCSA at UIUC operates Delta and other NSF-funded HPC systems and was the original home of the NSF supercomputing centers. Comparable in NSF lineage, federal grant funding, and industrial affiliate model.
• Georgia Tech Partnership for Advanced Computing Environment (PACE): PACE at Georgia Tech provides research computing resources to Georgia Tech faculty and external partners with NSF and federal funding. Comparable as an academic HPC center with industrial research engagement.
• Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC): OSC operates the Ohio-based HPC systems and is a PET program partner of Mississippi State. Directly comparable as an academic HPC center and explicit DoD HPCMP partner organization.

Broad incumbents

• Argonne National Laboratory: Argonne operates Aurora, the second U.S. exascale system, and runs the ALCF for DOE. Comparable in HPC infrastructure leadership but at national-lab scale with broader science and energy portfolio.
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL): ORNL operates Frontier, the first exascale system, and is a DOE Office of Science lab. Comparable in HPC-for-science mission but at dramatically larger scale and with national-lab scope spanning HPC, nuclear, and materials research.

Others

• NASA High-End Computing (HEC) Program: NASA's HEC Program operates Pleiades, Electra, and Aitken supercomputers at Ames for NASA missions. Comparable as a major HPC customer/program that funds HPC² via Stennis-based CFD and remote sensing research contracts.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/HPC2MSU
• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/hpc2msu?feature=guide
• Facebookfacebook.com/HPC2MSU
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/high-performance-computing-collaboratory-at-msu

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles11 records

Subsidiaries12 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about High Performance Computing Collaboratory at MSU