Chinese supercomputer takes first place on TOP500 list; U.S. systems hold next three spots

The LineShine supercomputer in Shenzhen, China, reached the first position on the TOP500 list with a performance of 2.198 exaflops. The ranking, released Tuesday, marks the machine’s debut on the list and ends a stretch in which U.S. systems held the top spot.

LineShine displaced El Capitan, which had been ranked first. El Capitan is located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and now sits in second place. Two additional U.S. supercomputers at national laboratories in Tennessee and Illinois follow immediately behind it.

The Jupiter system in Germany ranks fifth. LineShine, El Capitan, and the three machines ranked directly after them are the only publicly verified exascale computers. LineShine operates entirely on conventional CPUs rather than GPUs and draws approximately 42.2 megawatts of electricity.

It is housed at China’s National Supercomputing Center. The previous occasion on which a Chinese system led the TOP500 list occurred in 2017.