I wish to welcome all of you to the International Symposium on High Perf- mance Computing 2002 (ISHPC2002) and to Kansai Science City, which is not farfromtheancientcapitalsofJapan: NaraandKyoto.ISHPC2002isthefourth in the ISHPC series, which consists, to date, of ISHPC '97 (Fukuoka, November 1997), ISHPC '99 (Kyoto, May 1999), and ISHPC2000 (Tokyo, October 2000). The success of these symposia indicates the importance of this area and the strong interest of the research community. With all of the recent drastic changes in HPC technology trends, HPC has had and will continue to have a...