China Claims World's Fastest Supercomputer Despite US Trade Restrictions
China's LineShine supercomputer has become the fastest in the world, surpassing the US-built El Capitan, even as the US restricts sales of high-performance components to China.
China has reclaimed the title of the world’s fastest supercomputer for the first time since 2018, despite trade restrictions imposed by the United States. LineShine has pushed El Capitan out of the number one spot on the TOP500 ranking. The US still dominates the list, holding three of the top five positions.
LineShine is notable for not using any GPUs, which are typically the backbone of modern supercomputers. Instead, it employs roughly 45,000 LX2 processors, each with 304 cores running at 1.55GHz, connected over a special high-speed, low-latency network called LingQi.
LineShine is the first supercomputer to cross the 2,000 exaflop barrier and is 20 percent faster than the number-two system, El Capitan, on the TOP500 list. However, it also uses 42.2 megawatts, dramatically higher and less efficient than El Capitan’s 29.7 megawatts.
The Trump administration had sought to limit China’s access to chips from firms like NVIDIA and placed steep tariffs on products flowing in and out of the country. China responded by building the supercomputer around more readily available and generalized CPUs. This achievement also serves as a message from the Chinese government to the US.
