TOP500 at ISC'26: We Have a New Number 1 – By George Cozma
6 hours ago
- #HPC
- #TOP500
- #Supercomputing
- LineShine supercomputer from China becomes new number 1 on TOP500 list at ISC 2026.
- LineShine uses Armv9 LX2 CPUs, has 13 million cores, and achieves 2.198 Exaflops sustained FP64 performance.
- The system consumes 42.22 MW, with an efficiency of 52.07 Gigaflops per Watt, and also leads in HPCG benchmark.
- HPC7 from Eni in Italy debuts at number 6, using AMD Instinct MI300A APUs and boosting Italy's compute ranking in Europe.
- Fugaku drops to number 9 but remains top 3 in HPCG, showing lasting HPC-focused design.
- No changes in Green500 Top 10, but overall HPC efficiency improved due to retirements of older systems.
- Questions arise about China submitting other exascale systems (Sunway Oceanlight, CNIS) to TOP500 and potential US DOE funding increases.
- AI companies like xAI with large systems (e.g., Colossus 2) are not submitting to TOP500, despite the benchmark's value for stress-testing.
- ISC Group hands over TOP500 management to ACM SIGHPC, introducing DOI numbers for easier referencing.
- Curiosity about the process for organizations to benchmark and rank on TOP500, including potential for homelab comparisons.