The latest global economic crisis and subsequent slow recovery has coincided with changes in the way we build and use computers. Worldwide, firms and governments are investing significantly in computing infrastructure in the belief that this will yield a return to profitability and fuel economic growth. So how are these trends reflected in the NAFEMS community? In the 2014 regional conferences, there has been a significant increase in the number of papers that feature High Performance Computing, Cloud Computing and Big Data. In this article we look at the general issues, focusing our report on lessons learnt during the HPC session in the UK Conference in Oxford.