, Purdue's CIO and vice president of IT, said that until recently, investment banks were hiring virtually all of the college graduates with computer modeling skills. But, he added, communities of interest are now organizing and collaborating in other areas as well. For instance, Purdue has a Web 2.0 site called Hubzero.org that can be used to create scientific research communities with access to technical resources, including research algorithms and interactive simulation tools.

"We need to remember what made this country successful in terms of technology," McCartney said. "It was aggressive adoption of technology."

Earl Joseph, an IDC analyst who spoke at the in Austin last week, said competitive concerns are one of the reasons that HPC use is growing. Joseph warned attendees that manufacturers in Asia are using HPC systems to develop products, a move that he said is already is hurting some U.S. companies.

IDC has been forecasting that the HPC market would grow at an average annual rate of 9% over the next four years, to more than $15 billion in revenue. But the firm is revising that estimate based on the current economic conditions and their .

HPC development may benefit from an Obama administration economic stimulus package, through the government's funding of national laboratories and university research centers. "When the government got interested in climate modeling, we saw big advances in HPC," said Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO of the Computing Technology Industry Association, an Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based trade group known as CompTIA. Thibodeaux also hopes to see education funding that could help with IT training in the expected stimulus package.