China defies US restrictions and builds the world’s fastest supercomputer

China has it now The fastest in the world Supercomputersurpassing the United States. The system, known as LineShine and installed at the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen, dislodged the US El Capitan system from first place in the TOP500 ranking in terms of computing power.

The breakthrough comes in the middle Intense competition Between Beijing and Washington for technological superiority, distinguished High tariffs and restrictions On a wide range of hardware and software components.

Since 1993, the TOP500 ranking has defined the world The most powerful supercomputers Every six months through a series of benchmarks that evaluate the performance of each system, taking into account its theoretical speed and real-world performance, as well as its energy efficiency.

Historically, US-developed systems have dominated the classification. However, LineShine has brought China back to the top after nearly a decade outside the top spot.

El Capitan, based in Livermore, California, has held the top spot since 2024. Now, benchmark results have confirmed that LineShine exceeds the processing capacity of the US system by more than 20 percent.

With a power consumption of about 42.2 megawatts, the Chinese supercomputer offers 2,198 exaflops, meaning it can perform more than 2 quintillion operations per second.

One of LineShine’s most notable features is that, unlike most next-gen supercomputers, it doesn’t use graphics processing units (GPUs). Instead, it relies exclusively on central processing units (CPUs), components widely used in smartphones, desktop computers, and laptops but rarely found in large-scale scientific computing systems.

Another notable feature is that its entire infrastructure is built on hardware and software developed in China. The LineShine architecture is based on the LingKun platform and consists of approximately 45,000 LX2 processors. Each processor has 304 cores and runs at 1.55 GHz.

The nodes are connected through a high-speed network called LingQi, designed to reduce latency and speed up data exchange. The entire system runs on Kylin OS, a Linux-based operating system widely used in China’s scientific and government computing infrastructure.

A clear message from China to the United States

China’s return to the top of the TOP500 rankings has been interpreted as an achievement that goes beyond simply having the world’s fastest supercomputer, as the country is eager to show the world that its technology industry can thrive despite its lack of access to key American technologies.

During Donald Trump’s first administration and throughout Joe Biden’s presidency, the United States imposed strict export controls on components, software, and platforms related to advanced computing in an attempt to slow China’s technological progress. In response, Beijing adopted similar measures.

These restrictions have intensified during the current Trump administration, especially through tariffs and restrictions on imports of graphics processing units, advanced chips, and other components associated with artificial intelligence, technology that now supports a large share of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

These have limitations Forced China intends to invest in developing new architectures and technologies capable of building supercomputers that can compete with higher-performing American systems despite lacking access to some modern resources.

This story originally appeared on WIRED in Spanish It was translated from Spanish.