China plans CPU-only exascale supercomputer with 47,000 homemade processors, record 2 Exaflops of performance without GPUs — Lingshen super said to use Huawei Kunpeng servers and no foreign-made components
China's National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen has announced the Lingshen supercomputer, a CPU-only exascale system aiming for over 2 ExaFLOPS using 47,000 domestic processors and no foreign components. The system will reportedly use Huawei Kunpeng servers and avoid GPUs, differing from other exascale machines globally. It is planned to include 92 compute cabinets, over 650PB of storage, and a million-port interconnect. The project remains unproven, with no timeline or supplier details confirmed, and faces skepticism due to reliance on unverified domestic x86 CPUs.
- ▪Lingshen is designed to achieve sustained performance of over 2 ExaFLOPS using only CPUs, making it the first proposed exascale system without GPU accelerators.
- ▪The system will integrate 47,000 homemade processors across 92 compute cabinets and use Huawei Kunpeng servers based on Arm and potentially x86 architectures.
- ▪China claims the supercomputer will use no foreign-made components, though its use of x86 CPUs raises questions due to limited domestic options like Zhaoxin and Hygon.
- ▪The full system is expected to feature 650PB of storage, 36 network cabinets, and liquid-cooled infrastructure with 10 TB/s bandwidth.
- ▪No benchmark results or deployment timeline exist yet, and experts remain skeptical about the feasibility of the performance claims.
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Tech Industry China announces CPU-only exascale supercomputer with 47,000 homemade processors, record 2 Exaflops of performance without GPUs — Lingshen super said to use Huawei Kunpeng servers and no foreign-made components News By Luke James published 28 April 2026 Good luck with that. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: National Supercomputing Center, Shenzen) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter China's National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen announced the Lingshen supercomputer project at a conference on April 24, targeting sustained performance…
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