Techniques for handling escalation of interrupts in a data processing system

Techniques of handling interrupt escalation are implemented in hardware. In at least one embodiment, an interrupt presentation controller (IPC) receives an event notification message requesting an interrupt, specifying an interrupt priority, and referencing a virtual processor (VP) thread. The IPC determines whether the VP thread matches any interruptible VP thread. If not, the IPC conditionally escalates the interrupt requested by the event notification message. Conditionally escalating the interrupt includes determining whether or not the interrupt priority is greater than the operating priority of any interruptible VP thread. If so, the IPC initiates escalation of the interrupt requested by the event notification message to a next higher software stack level by issuing an escalate message. If not, the IPC refrains from escalating the interrupt requested by the event notification message.