What's the next programming model for HEC?

Among existing programming models for high-end computing, MPI is the most widely used. While the MPI standard is for message-passing, other popular programming models are: OpenMP, PVM, HPF, UPC. Michael Ball's blog gives some numbers on usage of these models. As he mentioned, it is widely considered MPI is difficult to program. There is a search for new models.

With the arrival of new multi-core processors, clusters of SMPs (known as Clumps) are the future. There is a very high possibility that these clusters are going to have heterogeneous muti-core processors such as Cell. So, the question is what is the most effective and optimal programming model for these new architectures? Is a new programming model necessary just because MPI is difficult to program? If a new programming model is needed, what should be the features of it? Hybrid MPI/OpenMP seems to be a temporary solution for cluster of SMPs. What is the future of this temporary solution? These questions open research questions. I am in the quest for finding answers to these questions and will keep it posted here if I find any. If you know any existing solutions, please comment or e-mail me.