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Supercomputing in China

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Supercomputer Share

Since the early 2000s, China has increased its presence in the TOP500 rankings of supercomputers, with systems like Tianhe-1A reaching the top position in 2010 and Sunway TaihuLight leading in 2016.[1]

By 2018, China had the highest number of supercomputers listed on the TOP500, reflecting its commitment to advancing computational capabilities across various sectors, including scientific research, industrial applications, and national defense.[1] However, this progress has been met with challenges, notably from U.S. sanctions aimed at curbing China's access to advanced computing technologies.[2] Since 2019, after the U.S. began levying sanctions on several Chinese companies involved with supercomputing, public information on the state of supercomputing in China had become less available.[3]

History

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The origins of these centers go back to the 1980s,[4] when the State Planning Commission, the State Science and Technology Commission and the World Bank jointly launched a project to develop networking and supercomputer facilities in China. In addition to network facilities, the project included three supercomputer centers.[5] The progress of supercomputing in China has been rapid; the country's most powerful supercomputer placed 43rd in November 2002 (DeepComp 1800[6]), 11th by November 2003 (DeepComp 6800[7]), 10th by June 2004 (Dawning 4000A[8]), and by November 2010 (Tianhe-1A[9]) held top spot. China would go on to fall behind Japan in June 2011 until June 2013 when the country's most powerful supercomputer once again clocked in as the world record.[10]

According to the MIT Technology Review, the Loongson processor would power the Dawning supercomputers by 2012, producing a line of totally Chinese-made supercomputers that reach petaflop speeds.[11]

Prior to the Sunway TaihuLight, Chinese supercomputers have used "off the shelf" processors, e.g. Tianhe-I uses thousands of Intel and Nvidia chips, and uses the Linux operating system which is open-source software. However, to avoid possible future technology embargo restrictions, the Chinese are developing their own processors such as the Loongson, a MIPS type processor.[12][10]

In November 2015, China increased its number of supercomputers on the TOP500 list to 109, up 196% from 37 just six months earlier. This expansion reflected growing investment in domestic innovation, with observers noting that “the Chinese government and companies want to become the creators and not just producer of products that are being designed elsewhere".[13]

In 2016, China's Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer became the world's fastest, achieving a peak performance of 93 petaflops per second. It was nearly three times faster than the next most powerful machine, Tianhe-2, and used over 10 million processor cores designed and manufactured in China. That year also marked the first time China surpassed the United States in total installed supercomputing capacity.[14] China led in the number of systems on the TOP500 list, with 167 supercomputers compared to 165 from the United States.[15]

In 2018, China extended its lead in the number of supercomputers on the TOP500 list, with 206 systems compared to 124 from the United States. While the United States regained the top spot for the fastest individual machine, the list showed that China remained the most prolific producer of supercomputers.[16]

In April 2021, seven Chinese supercomputing entities were added to the Entity List of the United States Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security.[17] The U.S. government cited their involvement in supporting China's military modernization and weapons development programs. Placement on the list subjects these entities to additional license requirements for exports, re-exports, and in-country transfers of items subject to U.S. export regulations.[18]

In 2023, China's National Supercomputing Center in Guangzhou launched the Tianhe Xinyi supercomputer, claiming it to be about five times more powerful than Tianhe-2A. Specific performance metrics were not disclosed.[19]

The scope of these restrictions widened in March 2025, when over 50 additional China-based firms were added to the Entity List. The U.S. government said the companies had sought advanced technologies in supercomputing, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing for military applications.[20] The Commerce Department stated that 27 entities had acquired U.S.-origin items to support China's military modernization, while seven were involved in advancing China's quantum technology capabilities. The agency said the expanded restrictions were part of broader efforts to limit Beijing's access to sensitive technologies, including exascale computing and high-performance AI chips.[21]

Also in March 2025, researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China announced a breakthrough with the Zuchongzhi-3 quantum computer, claiming it to be a quadrillion times faster than the most powerful classical supercomputer. According to the team, the system completed a random circuit sampling task that would take the classical supercomputer Frontier approximately 5.9 billion years to simulate. The researchers attributed this performance to improvements in chip fabrication and wiring configuration.[22]

Supercomputing Centers

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SCCAS

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The Supercomputing Center of the China Academy of Sciences (SCCAS) is a support service unit affiliated to the Computer Network Information Center (CNIC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences with the origin going back to the 1980s.[4] The Supercomputing Center of the China Academy of Sciences (SCCAS) provides academic support functions to the National Centers. SCCAS, which is located in Beijing, is the Northern main node and operation center for China National Grid (CNGrid).[23]

Yinhe-1 was independently designed and manufactured as the first leading China's supercomputer in 1983 with a performance level of 100 MFLOPS.[24]

Shanghai

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Shanghai Supercomputer Center (SSC) is a high-performance computing facility located in the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Pudong, Shanghai, China. Established in December 2000, it was the country's first public high-performance computing service platform open for general use.[25] Funded by the Shanghai Municipal Government, the SSC provides advanced supercomputing resources for scientific research and industrial applications.[25]

History and establishment

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The Shanghai Supercomputer Center was officially founded on December 28, 2000, as an initiative to bolster China's scientific computing capabilities.[26] From the outset, its mission was to offer high-performance computing services to a broad community of users, helping to bridge a crucial gap in the country's research infrastructure. Located in Shanghai's Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, the center was established with funding from the Shanghai Municipal Government. Upon opening, SSC deployed its first supercomputer, the Shenwei-I, a massively parallel system with a performance peak of 384 gigaflops (billion floating-point operations per second).[26] Early applications included climate modeling and pharmaceutical research, demonstrating the practical value of shared supercomputing resources for China's scientific community.[27]

By late 2003, growing demand for HPC services led to a comprehensive upgrade, undertaken as part of Shanghai's broader “Information Port” initiative.[28] This expansion culminated in the installation of the Dawning 4000A supercomputer—capable of 10 trillion computations per second—at SSC in November 2004.[29] In June 2004, it became the first Chinese supercomputer to enter the world's top ten on the TOP500 list, ranking No. 10.[30] Ongoing government support and rapid technological advancements spurred further enhancements in the late 2000s. On June 15, 2009, SSC launched its next-generation system, nicknamed the “Magic Cube” (Dawning 5000A), reaching a maximum performance of 180.6 teraflops.[31] This milestone marked the first Chinese supercomputer to surpass 100 trillion calculations per second, positioning it as the fastest supercomputer in Asia at the time.[32]

Infrastructure and capabilities

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The Shanghai Supercomputer Center has continually enhanced its infrastructure to support advanced scientific research and industrial innovation. At the core of its capabilities is the Magic Cube III supercomputer, with a peak performance of 3.3 petaflops, ranking it among China's most powerful computing systems.[33] SSC offers computational support across diverse fields—including artificial intelligence, environmental modeling, and drug discovery—enabling researchers to address complex global challenges. The center's infrastructure also features a robust suite of scientific simulation software, boosting its effectiveness in areas such as climate forecasting and public health analytics.[33]

SSC's AI platform supports the full lifecycle of artificial intelligence development, from data preprocessing to model training and deployment. This infrastructure fosters breakthroughs in domains such as autonomous technologies and machine learning. To meet increasing demands for high-performance computing, SSC continues to upgrade its systems and expand its partnerships with domestic and international research institutions. These developments not only reinforce SSC's central role in global scientific collaboration but also contribute to China's broader push for technological self-reliance, particularly in the fields of big data analytics, supercomputing, and AI.[34]

Services and applications

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The SSC provides a suite of services tailored to meet the diverse high-performance computing needs of both scientific and industrial users. Approximately 70% of its user base consists of researchers from universities and public research institutions, while the remaining 30% includes industry clients from sectors such as automotive, aerospace, and energy[26]

The center's service model comprises three core offerings. First, Computing Resource Leasing grants users access to SSC's high-performance computing clusters to run large-scale simulations, data analysis, and modeling tasks. Second, Technical Consulting Services provide expert guidance in areas such as computational fluid dynamics, structural mechanics, and algorithm optimization. Finally, Research and Development (R&D) Collaboration allows SSC to partner with external institutions on joint projects, offering technical support and co developing computational solutions.[34]

Future goals and significance

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The article effectively outlines the future goals of the Shanghai Supercomputer Center, emphasizing its strategic role in advancing China's high-performance computing capabilities. One of the primary objectives is the continued development of next-generation supercomputing systems, such as the Magic Cube III, which is designed to meet growing demands in fields like artificial intelligence, environmental modeling, and biomedicine.[34]

While these future-oriented developments are well integrated into the article, the section could benefit from greater specificity—such as naming particular research partnerships, projected technological milestones, or policy frameworks guiding these advancements.[33]

Tianjin

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The National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin was approved in May 2009 as the country’s first state-level supercomputing facility.[35] It hosts the Tianhe-1 system, developed by the National University of Defense Technology and unveiled on October 29, 2009. The project began under China’s 863 Program in 2008. Tianhe-1 achieved a peak theoretical performance of 1,206 teraflops and a sustained LINPACK result of 563.1 teraflops, ranking first on the TOP500 list.[36][37] It was the second system globally to exceed 10¹⁶ operations per second.[37]

The Tianjin Computer Institute had been active since 1984 when it developed the 16-bit TQ-0671 microcomputer system.[38] A commercial affiliate of the Tianjin center had previously made the PHPC100 personal supercomputer in 2008 which was approximately twice the size of a desktop and offering forty times its performance; a second-generation model appeared in 2010.[39]

Shenzhen

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The National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen (NSCS) was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology in May 2009 as one of China's first national supercomputing centers in the central-southern region. It is the second national supercomputing center after the one based in Tianjin and houses the second fastest machine in China, and the third fastest in the world.[40]

Located in Xili Lake International Science & Education City, SSC Phase I occupies 43,400 square meters and is equipped with a world-class supercomputer system. In May 2010 the Nebulae computer in Shenzhen placed second on the Top 500 supercomputer list, after the Cray computer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.[41]

Phase II is located in Guangming Science City. It covers 46,000 square meters of land, has a total construction area of 116,800 square meters, and is scheduled for completion by 2025.[42] This phase aims to expand computational capacity while integrating sustainable design principles. The center will house a 2E-level supercomputer and work alongside Phase I to provide large-scale scientific computing, industrial computation, big data processing, and intelligent supercomputing services.[43]

The Shenzhen Supercomputing Pingshan Service Platform is the first regional platform established by the National Supercomputing Shenzhen Center, with support from the Pingshan District Innovation Bureau. It aims to serve the "9+2" industrial clusters in Pingshan District, promote the development of technology industries in the Pingshan High-tech Zone, and enhance the district's innovation capacity.[44]

Changsha

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Foundations for a new major branch of the National Supercomputing Center (国家超级计算中心 Guójiā Chāojíjìsuàn Zhōngxīn) were laid in Hunan University, Changsha on 28 November 2010 as the first National Supercomputing Center in Central China and the third National Supercomputing Center in China apart from the two centers which are located in Tianjin and Shenzhen.[45] The National Supercomputing Changsha Center is managed and operated by Hunan University.[46] It operates the Tianhe-1A Hunan Solution – NUDT YH MPP supercomputer which runs at 1342 teraflops.[47] It was the most powerful supercomputer in the world at that time from its operation in November 2010 to November 2011.[48][49]

Jinan

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The National Supercomputing Center in Jinan (NSCCJN) is located in the capital of Shandong Province in East China. It is situated inside the Jinan Supercomputing Center Science and Technology Park, which opened in May 2019.[citation needed] The CPU runs the ShenWei processor SW1600 at 975 MHz, running at 796 teraflops and using 137,200 cores in the processor.[50]

The NSCCJN built the first prototype of the Sunway E-class computer in 2018.[51]

The center has also worked on projects that strengthen the internet access across various regions in China. In May 2024, the NSCCJN launched the "Shandong Computing Network", the first supercomputing Internet project in China that covers 16 cities in the province.[52]

Guangzhou

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The National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou operates the tenth most powerful supercomputer in the world (as of November 2022) Tianhe-2 (MilkyWay-2),[53] which runs at 33,000 teraflops. It also operates the Tianhe-1A Guangzhou Solution – NUDT YH MPP supercomputer that runs at 211 teraflops.[54] The center has been active since 2018.[citation needed]

In December 2023, China unveiled the domestically developed supercomputing system "Tianhe Xingyi" at the National Supercomputing Center in Guangzhou. The new system is reported to outperform the previous Tianhe-2 in several areas, including CPU computing power, networking, storage, and applications.[55]

Zhengzhou

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Located in central China's Henan province, the National Supercomputing Zhengzhou Center passed the inspection for operation in December 2020, becoming the seventh national supercomputing center in China.[56]

Kunshan

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In 2020, the National Supercomputing Kunshan Center successfully passed the acceptance of experts, becoming the second supercomputing center in Jiangsu Province and the eighth supercomputing center in China.[57]

Chengdu

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The National Supercomputing Center in Chengdu, officially launched in September 2020, serves as a pivotal node in China's high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure.[58] Situated in Tianfu New Area in the Sichuan province in southwest China, the center provides a range of services encompassing computing resources, software development, and talent cultivation.[59] It collaborates with over 1,400 users across more than 30 sectors, including basic science, artificial intelligence (AI), and urban governance.[60]

Chengdu distinguishes itself as one of the few Chinese cities hosting both a national supercomputing center and an intelligent computing center. The Chengdu Intelligent Computing Center, located in Pidu, focuses on AI applications and integrates platforms for AI computing power, scientific research innovation, and urban intelligence. With an initial computing power scale of 300 petaflops, it supports over 120 enterprises in developing AI solutions across various domains such as intelligent governance, healthcare, and manufacturing.[60]

In early 2025, Chengdu was designated as the main node in a new cross-regional computing service hub, with sub-nodes in Yibin and Lushan. This initiative aims to establish unified management and scheduling of computing resources, fostering an integrated ecosystem for the computing industry.[58]

The city's commitment to AI development is further evidenced by its designation as the first national AI innovation application pilot zone in western China. By 2023, Chengdu's AI and robotics industry had grown to a scale of 78 billion RMB, with projections exceeding 100 billion RMB in 2024.[61]

See also

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References

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