The C20 commission was founded by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), with the following mandate (art.1):

To promote the exchange of information and views among the members of the international community of physicists in the area ofcomputational studies of problems originating in or relevant to physics,including :

1. numerical and symbolic models and algorithms for the simulation of physical systems;
2. computational control and data processing of experiments;
3. programming and computational environments;
4. the physical basis of computer machinery.