Shenzhen national supercomputer LineShine returns China to TOP500 lead

2026-06-24

LineShine, or LineShine, at the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen (NSCS) took first place in TOP500, the global ranking of supercomputers by computing power. It is the first time since 2017, or 8.5 years, that a Chinese system has ranked No. 1.

No cutting-edge GPU, but still No. 1

An international conference of experts released the latest semiannual edition on the 23rd. LineShine delivered about 219.84 quadrillion calculations per second. It uses only CPUs and does not include GPUs, which are strong at parallel processing for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

Under U.S. semiconductor export controls, China has found it difficult to procure advanced GPUs from Nvidia and others. In this environment, winning first place with only domestically developed CPUs has underscored progress in indigenous technology, and some observers say it was also meant to highlight that progress.

GPU dependence remains clear

LineShine ranked fourth in a measure of computing speed in the AI field. High-performance GPUs are essential to take first place on this measure. According to Nvidia, more than 400 of the 500 machines in this TOP500 round used its GPUs. U.S. systems also took four of the top 10 spots, leaving their advantage intact.

Among Japanese systems, Fugaku, jointly developed by the RIKEN research institute and Fujitsu, fell to ninth from seventh in the previous ranking. RIKEN plans to work with Nvidia in addition to Fujitsu on Fugaku's successor, aiming for operation around 2030.

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