Engineering simulation is changing. What was once largely focused on design validation and one-off simulations is expanding into large parametric optimizations, automated workflows, custom applications, and workloads increasingly driven by artificial intelligence (AI). At the same time, compute environments are becoming more diverse. Workloads now span local workstations, high-performance computing (HPC) clusters, public and private clouds, central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), and container-based services — platforms that run software inside isolated, ready-to-go packages.
This evolution creates complexity for simulation users, information technology (IT) teams, and developers. Engineers accustomed to running simulations locally may suddenly need to work with clusters or cloud resources, making data transfer, monitoring, debugging, and linked analyses more challenging. IT teams must make effective use of a diverse mix of on-premises and cloud resources while maintaining visibility into system use and health. Developers, meanwhile, need applications and workflows that can operate across different compute environments without requiring extensive knowledge of every underlying resource.
The opportunity is to make HPC feel less like separate infrastructure and more like a seamless extension of everyday simulation workflows. Ansys, part of Synopsys, delivers this with Ansys HPC Platform Services, a set of technology components — think software or infrastructure building blocks — that connects scattered computing assets into a single, effortless workflow framework.
Connect Simulation to HPC Resources, Wherever They Are
Ansys HPC Platform Services provides a common platform for submitting and managing HPC jobs across different applications and compute environments. Serving as a central coordination layer, it handles workflows, file and project management, and remote job monitoring. Through the platform, Ansys desktop, web, and custom Python applications can easily connect to cloud resources, HPC clusters, or workstations.
You can interact with HPC Platform Services directly from engineering applications, such as Ansys Mechanical structural finite element analysis software, or through a browser-based web interface. This enables you to submit jobs, monitor status and progress, view logs and files, and retrieve results from a single platform.
For engineers, this makes HPC a more natural extension of desktop workflows. The platform offers a seamless experience with Ansys applications and supports workloads ranging from small and local to message passing interface (MPI) jobs that run across thousands of compute cores or GPUs. It also supports design points, parametric studies, and complex workflows, such as job dependencies. From the desktop app, you can submit work to multiple compute resources, monitor progress, and view logs locally while the system automatically handles linked and dependent analyses.
For IT teams, HPC Platform Services integrates with both open-source and commercial schedulers — or workload management tools — including Slurm Workload Manager, Portable Batch System (PBS) Professional, Altair Grid Engine (formerly Univa Grid Engine), IBM Load Sharing Facility (LSF), and Kubernetes. It’s designed to augment existing HPC infrastructure rather than replace scheduler functionality. It also provides detailed visibility into job activity, resource availability, and system health, helping organizations optimize the use of on-premises and cloud HPC resources.
For developers, HPC Platform Services can abstract compute resources from end applications and workflows through documented, scalable application programming interfaces (APIs) with Python and C++ support. These APIs also make the platform well suited to agentic AI workflows, providing a foundation for AI agents to submit, monitor, and orchestrate simulation jobs now and in the future. The result is a more consistent way to connect simulation workflows with the compute resources they need.
Explore Ansys HPC Platform Services Today
As simulation workloads and compute environments become more complex, HPC Platform Services provides a unified way to submit, manage, monitor, and scale HPC jobs while connecting applications with local, cluster, and cloud resources.
To learn more, watch the HPC Platform Services video playlist or contact usfor further support.
