'Even the U.S. Was Surprised': Unveiled Chinese Supercomputer Races to World No. 1 with Independent Technology

Overtaking El Capitan, China Returns to No.1 in TOP500 After 9 Years
AI Accelerator and HBM Integrated into CPU
China Highlights "New Architecture Free from GPU Dependency"
Showcasing Technological Independence Rooted in Huawei
Implica

China has reclaimed the top spot in the global supercomputer rankings with its domestically developed supercomputer "Lingxing" (LineShine). Defying the United States' advanced semiconductor export restrictions, China leveraged its own central processing unit (CPU) and advanced packaging technology to achieve the world's highest performance without NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs), leaving a significant impact on the global high-performance computing (HPC) market.

Lingsheng of China, recognized as the world's number one in performance.

According to the "TOP500" ranking announced at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) held in Hamburg, Germany, on June 23 (local time), Lingxing—operated by the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen (NSCS)—achieved a computing performance of 2.198 exaflops (219.8 quintillion calculations per second), immediately claiming the world’s number one spot upon its debut.

This marks a significant leap over El Capitan, the supercomputer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States, which previously held the top performance record. It is the first time in nine years that a Chinese supercomputer has reached the top of the TOP500 list since "Sunway TaihuLight" in 2017. The TOP500 announces global supercomputer rankings twice a year.

In recent years, China had effectively stopped submitting entries to the TOP500, keeping its actual technological capabilities veiled. Industry experts had speculated that China had already developed an exascale system, but this is the first time it has officially revealed world-leading performance. "Exascale" refers to computing capabilities of at least 100 quintillion calculations per second.

Supercomputers are used in weather forecasting, new drug development, nuclear fusion research, semiconductor design, space exploration, and artificial intelligence (AI) model training, and are often seen as indicators of national competitiveness. Most of the American supercomputers that Lingxing surpassed are operated under the U.S. Department of Energy and are used for national projects such as nuclear weapons development.

This result is drawing attention because it was achieved using a different approach from the mainstream trends in the supercomputer industry. Most of today’s top supercomputers use a combined CPU and GPU architecture. U.S. systems such as El Capitan, Frontier, and Aurora also use AMD or Intel processors paired with NVIDIA GPUs—a structure similar to that of AI data centers.

Lingxing stands out because it uses a CPU-based architecture developed independently by China, setting it apart from previous leading supercomputers that relied on American CPUs and GPUs.

According to Chinese sources, Lingxing employs a new architecture that integrates AI matrix computation acceleration within the CPU itself. By combining the CPU and AI acceleration functions, the system is designed to perform both high-performance computing (HPC) and AI calculations simultaneously. China has described this as next-generation supercomputing technology. However, industry insiders point out that Lingxing's AI capabilities still lag behind those of American supercomputers.

This achievement is also attracting attention in the semiconductor industry. According to China, the LX2 processor used in Lingxing not only features AI acceleration but also integrates high-bandwidth memory (HBM) within the package. HBM is a core component that determines the performance of current NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. The United States is now restricting exports of HBM to China, in addition to CPUs and GPUs.

Industry experts are focusing on the possibility that China has acquired advanced packaging capabilities to integrate not only CPU design but also HBM within the processor. Combining HBM with a CPU requires highly sophisticated packaging and high-speed interconnect technologies.

The Chinese side has highlighted this as an achievement in overcoming the U.S. technology blockade. They also emphasized that the system was built using domestic technology across both software and hardware, underscoring the fact that, unlike in the past, it does not rely on U.S. technology.

U.S. media outlets have noted the possibility that the LX2 processor used in Lingxing may be linked to Huawei technology. Although China has not officially disclosed the developer, the international HPC industry suspects that Huawei’s server processor technology may have been involved.

A domestic HPC expert commented, "I was surprised by this ranking," adding, "In a market that has shifted to a GPU-centered architecture, a CPU-based system claiming the top position was unexpected. It is time to reevaluate not only China's CPU design capabilities but also its HBM and packaging technologies."

Meanwhile, in Korea, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) is building the nation’s sixth supercomputer, "HANGANG." Once operational within this year, it is expected to enter the top 10 in the TOP500 rankings in the second half of the year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.