China's LineShine beats US El Capitan in Top500 supercomputer rankings
The ISC 2026 Top500 list unveiled in Hamburg moved China's LineShine to the top spot with a 2.67-exaflop Linpack performance, surpassing the United States' El Capitan. It is China's first Top500 No. 1 since 2016 and a symbolic milestone against the backdrop of US technology restrictions.
The LineShine system developed by the Beijing Supercomputing Center reached a 2.67-exaflop Linpack benchmark while consuming 21.3 megawatts of power. The system uses the domestic Loongson SW20A processor architecture and an interconnect backbone developed by Sunway, in response to US export restrictions.
LineShine outpaced El Capitan (2.55 exaflops), operated by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, by roughly 4.7 percent. China's Ministry of Science announced the system will be opened to 24 universities and institutes for climate modelling, drug design and energy research; acting director Liu Zhonglin said « it proves the industrial maturity of domestic architecture. »
A US Department of Energy official said the Discovery 2 system being built at the Oak Ridge facility in Tennessee targets performance above 3 exaflops in early 2027. Nvidia shares rose 1.2 percent in after-hours trade on Tuesday, AMD added 0.9 percent, while Intel stock was flat.
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