{"slug": "chinese-supercomputer-leapfrogs-best-us-machines-to-be-ranked-fastest", "title": "Chinese supercomputer leapfrogs best US machines to be ranked fastest", "summary": "China's LineShine supercomputer at the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen has been ranked the world's fastest, displacing the US's El Capitan in the Top500 list. It is the first Chinese computer to top the list since 2017 and runs entirely on conventional CPUs, achieving 2.198 exaflops. The ranking underscores China's growing technological prowess and the global race for supercomputing dominance.", "body_md": "A supercomputer in [China](https://www.theguardian.com/world/china) now outranks its US counterparts as the world’s most powerful. It is the first time since 2017 that a Chinese computer has topped a list sometimes viewed as a measure of a nation’s technological prowess.\n\nThe LineShine computer in Shenzhen displaced top-ranked US computer El Capitan in the Top500 rankings released on Tuesday. It was LineShine’s debut on the list.\n\nChina’s LineShine differs from other high-performance computers in that it runs entirely on conventional computer chips (CPUs), instead of the graphics processors (GPUs), commonly used for AI. It requires about 42.2 megawatts of electricity to operate, according to the list.\n\nSupercomputers, which are more than 1,000 times faster than a regular computer, can be used to hunt for medical breakthroughs, model climate systems, simulate nuclear explosions, predict human behaviour and perform virtual weapons testing.\n\nScientists involved in the Top500 project said LineShine at China’s National Supercomputing Center achieved 2.198 exaflops, meaning it can perform more than 2 quintillion calculations per second.\n\nEl Capitan, at the US government’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, now ranks second, ahead of two other US supercomputers at national laboratories in Tennessee and Illinois.\n\nDropping to fifth place is the Jupiter supercomputer in Germany. The five are the only publicly verified exascale computers in the world.\n\nOther countries with machines in the top 10 include Italy, Switzerland and Japan.\n\nThe UK has 11 machines in the list of 500. The University of Bristol’s Isambard-AI is highest ranked of that group at 11, down two places since the last ranking. Isambard-AI, fitted with 5,400 Nvidia “superchips”, sits inside a black metal cage topped with razor wire.\n\nWestern Australia’s Setonix – ranked 86th – is the best performing of the four machines located in Australia.\n\nLast year the EU revealed a €20bn (£17bn) plan to build sites equipped with vast supercomputers to develop the next generation of AI models, as Europe attempts to catch leaders in the US and China.\n\nThe AI “gigafactories” will target “moonshot” innovations in areas such as healthcare, biotech, industry, robotics and scientific discovery.\n\nThe best-performing AI factories have supercomputers equipped with up to 25,000 advanced AI processors, but a gigafactory would exceed 100,000 AI processors, the EU strategy document said.\n\nThese [power-hungry facilities](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/15/data-center-gas-emissions-tech), which can require [huge amounts of water for cooling](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/09/big-tech-datacentres-water), should run “as much as possible” on a green energy supply, an EU official said, with plans for “recycling” water if it was used.\n\nCampaigners fear power-hungry datacentres could undermine Europe’s climate ambitions.\n\n*Additional reporting by Jennifer Rankin, Robert Booth and Associated Press*", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chinese-supercomputer-leapfrogs-best-us-machines-to-be-ranked-fastest", "canonical_source": "https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/24/china-supercomputer-world-fastest-top500-ranking-lineshine", "published_at": "2026-06-24 01:32:06+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-24 01:44:09.587975+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-infrastructure", "ai-chips", "ai-research"], "entities": ["LineShine", "El Capitan", "National Supercomputing Center", "Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory", "Top500", "University of Bristol", "Nvidia", "Jupiter"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chinese-supercomputer-leapfrogs-best-us-machines-to-be-ranked-fastest", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chinese-supercomputer-leapfrogs-best-us-machines-to-be-ranked-fastest.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chinese-supercomputer-leapfrogs-best-us-machines-to-be-ranked-fastest.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chinese-supercomputer-leapfrogs-best-us-machines-to-be-ranked-fastest.jsonld"}}