China's LineShine supercomputer reclaims world's fastest title

China has regained the title of the world's fastest supercomputer for the first time since 2017. The 'LineShine' system, developed at the National Supercomputer Center, achieved 2.198 exaflops of performance, beating the previous champion, 'El Capitan' (1.809 exaflops), located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the USA.

According to Top500.org, LineShine is the first supercomputer to exceed two exaflops of sustained double-precision performance using only CPUs. Unlike many leading systems, it does not rely on GPUs but is built around a custom 304-core processor. The machine has a total of 13.79 million cores running at 1.55 GHz, linked by a proprietary interconnect. It draws approximately 42.2 megawatts of power, achieving an efficiency of 52.07 gigaflops per watt.

Top500 organizer Dr. Jack Dongarra told The New York Times that it is an impressive system, noting that China managed to develop a powerful computer without relying on GPUs, despite technology embargoes. Although China took the top spot, the new ranking now features five systems exceeding the exascale threshold: one in China, three in the US, and one in Germany. Oak Ridge National Laboratory's 'Frontier' ranks third at 1.353 exaflops, Argonne National Laboratory's 'Aurora' fourth at 1.012 exaflops, and the Jülich Supercomputing Centre's 'Jupiter Booster' fifth at exactly one exaflop.

Top500 noted significant architectural diversity in this year's list, with different models using Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, and other architectures. According to the organization, there is no single dominant technology path to leadership-class computing; instead, vendors pursue a variety of CPU, GPU, APU, and custom-accelerator approaches.

LineShine was developed without public funding, allowing its designers to submit it to Top500's tests without issues. However, the company did not disclose details such as which company manufactured the CPUs or the type of chip technology used.