Supercomputing Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Supercomputing patents: mapping the architecture claims behind massively parallel systems
Filing peaked in 2021 at 234 records and had fallen to 92 by 2024, a 61% drop over that three-year span — though 2025-26 figures are still filling in as publication catches up with filing. Filings rose from 163 in 2017 to a peak of 234 in 2021, then fell to 92 by 2024 — a 61% decline over that three-year window. 2025 and 2026 counts are partial because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months; they should not yet be read as a continued fall.
- 1INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE CORPORATION18.9%
- 2NVIDIA CORP14.9%
- 3INTEL CORP4.9%
- 4ILLUMINA INC1.9%
- 5ICAT LLC1.8%
See the full supercomputing patent landscape analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about supercomputing patents
Who holds the most supercomputing patents?
International Business Machine Corporation is the largest filer in this dataset by a wide margin, with 554 records against a fifth-place figure of 52 and a tenth-place figure of 39. That gap means the field is concentrated at the top: the top 5 assignees together hold 42.4% of all 2,934 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 49.6%. Behind that leading group sits a long tail of assignees with only a handful of filings each, so a single company’s dominance does not mean the surrounding claim space is closed.
Is supercomputing patent filing activity growing or slowing?
Filing rose through the late 2010s, peaked at 234 records in 2021, and had fallen to 92 by 2024 — a 61% decline over that three-year span. However, publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset are always undercounted and should not be read as evidence of a continuing drop. The more reliable read is that the wave of foundational architecture filing that built up to 2021 has largely settled, with several major historical filers showing near-zero activity in the latest complete year.
What technology areas dominate supercomputing patent claims?
G06F, the electric digital data processing class, appears in 74.4% of the 2,934 records in scope, making it by far the dominant classification. H04L (digital information transmission) and H05K (printed circuits and assemblies) follow at 14.3% and 10.1% respectively, while AI-model computing (G06N) sits at 6.4%. Because a single patent record can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages overlap rather than summing to 100%, and they should be read against the full 2,934-record base rather than against each other.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Supercomputing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.