Hong Kong\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n China has clinched the top spot on a list of the world\u2019s most powerful supercomputers, overtaking the United States for the first time since 2017 with a model powered by homegrown chips amid an intense race for tech supremacy between the two superpowers.\n <\/p>\n
\n The LineShine machine, housed at the National Supercomputing Center in China\u2019s tech hub of Shenzhen, replaced the American titleholder El Capitan in the latest biannual TOP500 ranking<\/a>, which tracks the world\u2019s most powerful supercomputers.\n <\/p>\n \n The ranking released on Tuesday showed the LineShine achieved a computing speed 20% faster than El Capitan, which is located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.\n <\/p>\n \n Supercomputers, designed for complex computations at unmatched speeds, are often used to discover and develop new drugs, forecast weather, train AI models and conduct a wide range of simulations.\n <\/p>\n \n The success of the LineShine comes as the US and China ratchet up their tech rivalry and Washington attempts to curb Beijing\u2019s access to frontier technologies from AI to chips that could power its military.\n <\/p>\n \n Since President Donald Trump\u2019s first term, the US has ramped up export controls and restrictions aiming to slow China\u2019s advancement in these technologies.\n <\/p>\n \n China\u2019s National Supercomputing Center said in an online statement<\/a> that the LineShine is the \u201cresult of breakthroughs across a series of core technological bottlenecks.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n LineShine\u2019s achievements \u201cmark a historic leap for China\u2019s supercomputing sector in overcoming foreign technology restrictions and building an independently controlled hardware and software ecosystem,\u201d it said.\n <\/p>\n \n Notably, the LineShine relies entirely on CPUs \u2013 conventional computing chips often found in consumer electronics \u2013 instead of specialized GPUs \u2013 the highly sought-after chips that power most of the supercomputers today and are dominated by American suppliers like Nvidia.\n <\/p>\n \n Through a series of measures starting in 2022, Washington has cut off China\u2019s access to the cutting-edge GPUs, throttling Chinese companies\u2019 efforts in competing for the top AI models<\/a> with US tech giants.\n <\/p>\n \n The moves forced Chinese companies to innovate around the restrictions. Last year, China-based AI startup DeepSeek released a model that delivered near industry-leading performance with far fewer advanced chips, surprising Silicon Valley and the wider industry.\n <\/p>\n \n Speaking at the TOP500 award ceremony in Hamburg, Germany, LineShine chief designer Lu Yutong said the machine broke through from the conventional hybrid architecture of using both CPUs and GPUs for supercomputers.\n <\/p>\n