The present invention provides for reduced message-passing protocol communication overhead between a plurality of high performance computing (HPC) cluster computing nodes. In particular, HPC cluster performance and MPI host-to-host functionality, performance, scalability, security, and reliability can be improved. A first information handling system host, and its associated network interface controller (NIC) is enabled with a lightweight implementation of a message-passing protocol, which does not require the use of intermediate protocols. A second information handling system host, and its associated NIC is enabled with the same lightweight message-passing protocol implementation. A high-speed network switch, likewise enabled with the same lightweight message-passing protocol implementation, interconnected to the first host and the second host, and potentially to a plurality of like hosts and switches, can create an HPC cluster network capable of higher performance and greater scalability.