Russia's space launch in 1957 of Sputnik led to feelings of inferiority in the U.S. that helped fuel the U.S. space program and the rush to be the first to the moon. This anxiety over superpower status helped fuel the cold war and other such U.S. government crises.  Apparently, Russia is now suffering a similar confidence crisis when comparing its supercomputing prowess with that of the U.S.

President Dmitry Medvedev was critical of Russia’s IT industry for its failure to develop supercomputing technology, and at the opening address at a Security Council Meeting on Supercomputers Medvedev told the attendees that on the TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, 476 of those 500 supercomputers were manufactured in the United States. "Therefore, in general, our situation is very difficult," he said.  Medvedev also urged a dramatic change in Russia's use of high-performance computing.

The 33rd edition of the TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers continues to be led by Roadrunner and Jaguar, and also includes a new listing at No. 14, an IBM BlueGene/P system at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. Medvedev promised increased support and investment in Russian supercomputing technology, and warned that without it "our products will not be competitive or of interest to potential buyers."

Supercomputers are widely used in Western countries to build industry staples such as aircraft, and Medvedev expressed concern that few aircraft in Russia have been built using this technology. Most of Russian aircraft design today is still being done on paper, he indicated, but "only a digital approach can have a breakthrough effect, lead to dramatic improvements in quality, and reduce the cost of the product."

Russia does have commercial development in high-performance computing. A Moscow-based company known as T-Platforms is gaining presence and is entering the European market. IDC high-performance computing analyst Earl Joseph stated that T-Platforms is selling its systems as complete services that include the scientific and engineering needed to use the platforms. "It's the first company that we have seen that has done it on any major scale."

T-Platforms bundles scientific and engineering assistance around systems built with commodity hardware in order to better capitalize on Russia’s academic strength.  The oil industry in Russia is also said to be cooperating with academics and scientists through the use of supercomputers.