Intersect360 Research defines Hyperscale as arbitrarily scalable, web-facing application infrastructure that is distinct from general enterprise computing infrastructure. Whereas HPC tends to focus on scaling up the performance of individual jobs, the Hyperscale market focuses primarily on scaling out the serving of many jobs. Another key difference is that HPC has a broad entry-level segment with jobs on as few as two nodes; by contrast, we view users in the Hyperscale segment as having a minimum average expenditure of $1 million on information technology. Not all enterprise computing over $1 million per year is Hyperscale; the critical question is whether the expenditure supports web- or internet-facing applications.

There is no restriction as to the type of applications that can appear in the Hyperscale market, but some of the most common are: internet search, social media, large-scale retail, digital content distribution, telecommunications, internet and cloud services, and online games.