  We provide a general discussion of Smolyak's algorithm for the acceleration
of scientific computations. The algorithm first appeared in Smolyak's work on
multidimensional integration and interpolation. Since then, it has been
generalized in multiple directions and has been associated with the keywords:
sparse grids, hyperbolic cross approximation, combination technique, and
multilevel methods. Variants of Smolyak's algorithm have been employed in the
computation of high-dimensional integrals in finance, chemistry, and physics,
in the numerical solution of partial and stochastic differential equations, and
in uncertainty quantification. Motivated by this broad and ever-increasing
range of applications, we describe a general framework that summarizes
fundamental results and assumptions in a concise application-independent
manner.
