This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Advanced Parallel Processing Technologies, APPT 2003, held in Xiamen, China in September 2003. The 57 revised full papers and 21 revised short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 191 full paper submissions. All current aspects in parallel and distributed computing are addressed ranging from hardware and software issues to algorithmic aspects and advanced applications. The papers are organized in topical sections on architecture, software and theory, grid and network, and applied technologies.