4. Parallel and high-performance computing
As noted earlier, a summary of the current capabilities of some of the multiphysics methods on current computing platforms is provided in Figure 1. In order to truly leverage the power of these methods in real-world applications, one needs to utilize parallel and HPC resources, which we discuss below. In current terms, high-performance computing (HPC) broadly involves the use of new architectures (such as GPU computing), computing in distributed systems, cloud-based computing, and computing in parallel to massively parallel platforms or extreme hardware architectures for running computational models (Figure 2, left). The term applies especially to systems that function with large floating-point operations per second (teraflops 1012, petaflops 1015, exaflops 1018) regimes or systems requiring extensive memory. HPC has remained a sustained and powerful driving force for multiphysics modeling and scientific computing and central to applications in science, engineering, and medicine.