▲ Chinese supercomputer 'LineShine'
A Chinese-made supercomputer has overtaken U.S. systems to reclaim the world's top spot for the first time in nine years.
According to the global non-profit organization TOP500, China's supercomputer "LineShine" (known in Chinese as "Lingcheng") ranked first on the TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers, which was announced on June 23 (local time) at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) 2026 in Hamburg, Germany. This marks the first time a Chinese system has topped the list since 2017.
LineShine recorded 2.198 exaflops (EF; one quintillion calculations per second) in the High-Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark, achieving 80% of its theoretical peak performance of 2.736 EF.
The TOP500 organization highlighted the achievement, stating, "It is the first TOP500 system to surpass 2 EF in sustained double-precision performance (the maximum computing power a system can maintain without overheating during complex scientific calculations) using only central processing units (CPUs)."
LineShine was developed by the Shenzhen Cloud Computing Center and installed at the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen. It is based on the Chinese-made custom processor platform, "Lingkun."
The supercomputer consists of 13.79 million 304-core LX2 processors running at 1.55 GHz. It utilizes the independently developed "Lingchi" interconnect technology and the Linux-based "Kylin" operating system (OS).
TOP500 noted that LineShine had never appeared on the supercomputer ranking list before, adding, "This is the first time a Chinese supercomputer has taken the top spot in the TOP500 since 2017."
The last Chinese supercomputer to hold the world's No. 1 position before LineShine was the "Sunway TaihuLight" (2016–2017).
"El Capitan," located at the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), which held the top spot until last year, fell to second place this year with an HPL benchmark of 1.809 EF.
Third place went to "Frontier" (1.353 EF) at the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), followed by "Aurora" (1.012 EF) at the U.S. Argonne National Laboratory in fourth, and "Jupiter Booster" (1.000 EF) at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre in Germany in fifth.
The TOP500 list, which ranks the world's supercomputers, was first created following a conference in Mannheim, Germany, in 1993. It currently releases updated lists twice a year, in June and November.
Chinese state media praised LineShine's performance, claiming that China has successfully overcome restrictions on importing advanced technologies, such as U.S. Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs), to build the world's best supercomputer using only CPUs. They asserted that China has succeeded in establishing an independent hardware and software ecosystem.
The English-language Chinese media outlet Global Times quoted technology expert Ma Jihua as saying, "China is no longer keeping a low profile and has returned to global benchmark competition." He added, "The previous restrained attitude was mainly due to external sanctions and a cautious approach to disclosure, but China has now jumped back into the top-tier competition, leading Western systems by a significant margin in terms of performance."
(Photo: Weibo capture, Yonhap News)
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