EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This Intersect360 Research report presents the 2024 total market size and five-year forecast for the overall market for the on-premises or colocated (i.e., non-cloud) servers and systems used for High Performance Computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI), segmented into server classes. The primary consideration for server class is sales price—entry-level HPC systems under $50K, midrange HPC systems from $50K to $250K, high-end HPC systems from $250K to $1.5 million, and supercomputers over $1.5 million—although architecture, sales channel, and sales cycle are all additional considerations. The forecast horizon is from 2025 through 2029, with compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) using 2024 as a base.
At the top level, Intersect360 Research tracks total data center infrastructure, segmented into accelerated, parallel computing segments (the “AI market”) and non-accelerated segments. The AI-focused accelerated computing portion is segmented into five categories: hyperscale AI, AI-focused cloud service providers, national sovereign AI data centers, HPC-AI (non-cloud), and enterprise AI (non-HPC, non-cloud). Two additional non-accelerated segments—hyperscale and enterprise—complete the market. The detailed forecast for these data center segments is given in the Intersect360 Research report, Worldwide Data Center and AI Infrastructure 2024 Total Market Size and 2025-29 Forecast: Accelerated and Non-Accelerated Computing Segments, published as part of this forecast report series.
In general, the HPC-AI market includes multi-node, networked systems or cloud instances running parallel applications, which require a focus on performance or scalability in some dimension (e.g., processing, memory, I/O, networking), plus associated storage, software, networks, services, and other necessary components. Note that this report focuses exclusively on server hardware spending for HPC-AI and Enterprise AI systems, excluding other infrastructure components such as storage, interconnects, or services, which are covered in separate reports. The market size does not include spending on internal budget items such as power consumption or staffing, which are tracked in separate surveys.
Intersect360 Research reports available in this series include the following segmentations of the HPC-AI and enterprise AI market:
- Products and Services: servers, storage, networks, software, service, cloud, other
- Vertical markets: academia, national security, national research labs, national agencies, state or local governments, bio sciences, chemical engineering, consumer product manufacturing, electronics, energy, financial services, large product manufacturing, media and entertainment, retail, transportation, other (presented both with and without hyperscale as a vertical market)
- Regions: Americas, EMEA, Asia-Pacific
- Server class (HPC-AI server revenue): entry-level, midrange, high-end, supercomputer
The HPC-AI and enterprise AI segments combined grew 24.1% to reach $60.1 billion in 2024. Since virtually all HPC-using sites are also investing in AI as part of a merged infrastructure or budget, this blended segmentation represents the enterprise (non-hyperscale) “AI market.” Spending on on-premises HPC-AI and Enterprise AI servers, excluding hyperscale, reached $19.2 billion in 2024, reflecting a 36.8% increase over the prior year. This sharp rise was driven by a wave of GPU-enabled system refreshes and strong enterprise demand across industries.
The growth was particularly concentrated in the supercomputing and high-end server classes, which benefited from large-scale AI model training initiatives and infrastructure modernization efforts. Meanwhile, entry-level and midrange server classes also saw meaningful gains, suggesting a widening base of AI adoption across organizational sizes.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary – 2
Table of Contents – 4
Introduction – 5
The “AI Market”: Accelerated, Parallel Computing – 6
Data Center Segment Definitions – 7
What Are HPC, AI, and Hyperscale? – 9
The HPC-AI and Enterprise AI Market – 11
The AI Boom – 11
HPC-AI and Enterprise AI Server Classes, 2024 vs. 2023 – 11
Table 1: HPC-AI and Enterprise AI Server Market, 2024 VS. 2023, by Server Class ($M) – 13
Figure 1: HPC-AI and Enterprise AI Server Market, 2024 VS. 2023, by Server Class ($M) – 13
HPC-AI and Enterprise AI Forecast, 2025-29: Server Classes – 14
Table 2: HPC-AI and Enterprise AI Server Market, 2023-24 Actual, 2025-29 Forecast, by Server Class ($M) – 14
Figure 2: HPC-AI and Enterprise AI Server Market, 2023-24 Actual, 2025-29 Forecast, by Server Class ($M) – 15
Conclusions – 16
Appendix A: Methodology – 19
Appendix B: HPC, AI, and Hyperscale: Definitions and Interdynamics – 21
What are Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning? – 21
What is HPC? – 23
What is Hyperscale? – 23
What Makes Hyperscale “Hyper”? – 24
Hyperscale and Business Computing – 25
Hyperscale and HPC – 25
How Hyperscale is Unique – 27