Published on 6/24/2026
The Chinese “Line Shine” computer took the lead in the supercomputer race this week, making its supercomputer now the fastest in the world, with a difference of up to 22% over its closest American competitor from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, according to a report by the American newspaper “The Wall Street Journal” on Wednesday.
The report states that the competition for first place in the supercomputer race has been raging between the United States of America, Japan and China for years. China won this title for the first time in 2010, and in 2023 China will stop participating in the rankings that are published twice a year. But experts speculated that a Chinese computer had topped the list, but they did not have sufficient data to prove this.
The new computer, called “Line Shine” and built at the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen, relies on a set of Chinese technologies, from central processing units to memories and its own networking and cooling systems, instead of graphics processing units as is the norm by competing supercomputers.
Supercomputers, which are the size of tennis courts, are used in pioneering scientific research and to solve problems such as predicting hurricanes and locating oil deposits. It is also used in military applications, as the US government uses the former El Capitan computer to help maintain its nuclear weapons stockpile, among other tasks.
The new supercomputer reinforces the technological race between China and the United States for technological dominance, which has reached its peak in the artificial intelligence sector and chipsets in general, according to the report.
A different approach in supercomputers
The Chinese “Line Shine” computer relies on a different approach in the supercomputer sector. Instead of separating the tasks of traditional central processors and graphics processors, the computer combines them through the use of specialized circuits that speed up the advanced calculations that they require, according to what the New York Times reported today.
This trend comes as a direct response to American laws that undermine Chinese companies’ access to advanced graphics processors from NVIDIA and other American companies, as they needed to invest in technological structures that would allow them to own supercomputers that were as efficient as American computers.
The “Line Shine” computer consists of 14 million different computing cores installed in 90 equipment cabinets, and it relies on chips specially designed for it, although the Chinese center did not reveal the company that manufactured the chips for the new computer.
For his part, one of the organizers of the list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, Jack Dongara, explained that the system on which the “Line Shine” computer relies is impressive, adding that China’s possession of such technologies is not a surprise to him.
Dongara also confirmed in his interview with the New York Times that the Lineshine computer did not depend on any government funding, and this is what prompted the center to participate in the supercomputer race.
