China's LineShine tops global supercomputer ranking

Installed at the National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen, LineShine achieved 2.198 exaflops on the High Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark, more than 20% faster than the second-ranked system. It is the fifth exascale computer ever built and the first Chinese system to lead the TOP500 since Sunway TaihuLight in 2017.

Built by the Shenzhen Cloud Computing Center, LineShine is powered by the custom LingKun platform with 304-core LX2 processors, the proprietary LingQi interconnect and Kylin OS. The system also claimed first place in the HPCG benchmark with 22 petaflops, demonstrating strong performance on real-world scientific workloads.

The TOP500 ranking noted that LineShine "debuts as the new No. 1 system, ending El Capitan's run atop the list and becoming the fifth Exascale system overall."

The US-based El Capitan at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory dropped to second place with 1.809 exaflops, followed by Frontier at Oak Ridge National Laboratory with 1.353 exaflops and Aurora at Argonne National Laboratory with 1.012 exaflops.

Germany's JUPITER Booster retained fifth place with exactly 1 exaflop, remaining Europe's first exascale supercomputer.

The TOP500 list, published twice a year, ranks the world's most powerful supercomputers based on their performance in the HPL benchmark, which measures their ability to solve complex scientific and engineering calculations.

Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that new data centers are being built in Kazakhstan, according to Bagdat Mussin, who announced the plans during a government meeting in Astana.