BEIJING — A Chinese supercomputer has topped the global TOP500 ranking of the world’s most powerful systems for the first time since 2017, displacing a leading U.S. machine, according to the latest biannual list released on Tuesday.
The LineShine system, installed at the National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen, achieved 2.198 exaflops on the High Performance Linpack benchmark, surpassing the previous leader, the U.S. El Capitan supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
LineShine, built using domestically developed technology including custom Armv9-based LingKun processors, a proprietary LingQi interconnect and the Kylin operating system, is the first CPU-only system to exceed 2 exaflops sustained performance. It uses approximately 13.79 million cores and reached about 80% of its theoretical peak.
The ranking was announced at the ISC 2026 conference in Hamburg, Germany. It marks China’s return to the top spot after Sunway TaihuLight held the position in 2017. Chinese systems had not appeared prominently in recent lists amid U.S. export restrictions on advanced chips.
“LineShine demonstrates significant progress in China’s high-performance computing capabilities using homegrown components,” a statement from the Shenzhen Cloud Computing Center, which built the system, said.
The development comes as the U.S. and China compete in advanced technology. While LineShine leads on the standard Linpack benchmark, it ranked lower on mixed-precision tests more relevant to artificial intelligence workloads, where U.S. systems with advanced GPUs maintain advantages.
The TOP500 list, compiled twice yearly since 1993, serves as a key benchmark for supercomputing performance used in scientific research, national security and industrial applications. Five systems worldwide have now crossed the exascale threshold.
As of Wednesday, officials in China hailed the achievement as a milestone in technological self-reliance. Details on specific applications or future expansions of LineShine were not immediately detailed in public statements. The U.S. continues to lead in the overall number of high-ranking systems on the list.
