China took back a coveted computing crown from the United States on Tuesday, ratcheting up a fierce technological competition that has implications for science, national security and geopolitics.

周二，中国从美国手中夺回了令人垂涎的计算桂冠，令这场对科学、国家安全及地缘政治均具深远影响的技术竞赛愈演愈烈。

LineShine, a massive computing system in Shenzhen, China, was declared the world’s fastest by a group of researchers using a set of standard tests for supercomputers. Besides raw speed, the system stood out because it uses only standard microprocessors and not the special-purpose chips called graphics processing units, which most high-end supercomputers rely on for heavy number crunching.

一个对超级计算机进行标准测试的研究团队宣布，位于中国深圳的大型计算系统“灵晟”(LineShine)是全球最快计算机。除了绝对速度外，该系统的一大亮点是仅使用了标准微处理器，而没有依赖大多数高端超级计算机用于繁重数值计算的专用芯片——图形处理器。

That underlying design could point to a better way to blend artificial intelligence with traditional scientific tasks, said Jack Dongarra, an organizer of the so-called Top500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

田纳西大学计算机科学与电气工程教授、全球超级计算机“TOP500榜单”组织者之一杰克·唐加拉表示，这一底层设计可能指出了一条将人工智能与传统科学任务更好地融合的新路径。

Dr. Dongarra, a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Tennessee, recently inspected the new machine, at the Shenzhen Cloud Computing Center. LineShine’s test results were more than 20 percent faster than those of El Capitan, a system at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California that has topped a twice-yearly ranking of supercomputer performance since November 2024. China had not placed a machine at the top of the list since 2017.

唐加拉近期查验了位于深圳云计算中心的新机器。灵晟的测试结果比美国加州劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室的“酋长岩”(El Capitan)快了20%以上；自2024年11月以来，“酋长岩”一直占据着这份每半年更新一次的超级计算机性能排名榜首。自2017年以来，中国尚无系统登顶该榜单。

位于加利福尼亚州劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室的“酋长岩”超级计算机。“灵晟”的测试结果比此前位居榜首的“酋长岩”快20%以上。

“It’s an impressive system,” Dr. Dongarra said of LineShine. “They upped us by developing a system that is not reliant on GPUs.”

“这是一套令人印象深刻的系统，”唐加拉在谈及灵晟时说。“他们通过开发不依赖GPU的系统超越了我们。”

The new supercomputer adds to the race between China and the United States for technological supremacy. U.S. tech giants like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have developed leading A.I. models, while another American company, Nvidia, has become the world’s dominant supplier of A.I. chips. China has tried to innovate in different ways, with the Chinese start-up DeepSeek releasing a cutting-edge A.I. model last year using just a tiny fraction of specialized A.I. chips.

这台新的超级计算机加剧了中美之间争夺技术霸权的竞赛。美国的科技巨头如OpenAI、Anthropic和谷歌已开发出领先的AI模型，而另一家美国公司英伟达则已成为全球AI芯片的主导供应商。中国试图通过不同的方式创新，例如中国初创公司深度求索去年仅使用了极小部分的专用AI芯片，便发布了尖端AI模型。

To prevent China from catching up, President Trump has imposed tariffs and at times placed limits on A.I. chip exports. But China’s use of standard microprocessors, which are known as CPUs, rather than GPUs to create an ultrafast supercomputer suggests a potential way to get around those roadblocks.

为防止中国赶上，特朗普总统已加征关税，并不时对AI芯片出口设限。但中国使用被称为CPU的标准微处理器（而非GPU）打造超快超级计算机，表明了一种绕过这些壁垒的潜在途径。

“The U.S. government should have stronger controls on the export and manufacturing of CPUs for the China market,” said Jimmy Goodrich, a senior fellow at the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. “It is a loophole in the current regulations.”

加州大学全球冲突与合作研究所高级研究员吉米·古德里奇表示：“美国政府应该对面向中国市场的CPU出口和制造实施更严格的管控，这是现行法规中的一个漏洞。”

Supercomputers, a term for the largest machines dedicated to science, have been used since the 1960s for tasks like creating climate models, cracking codes and designing nuclear weapons. They typically use high-precision mathematics, expressing numbers with 64 bits of data.

超级计算机——用于科学研究的巨型机器——自20世纪60年代以来一直被用于创建气候模型、破译密码和设计核武器等任务。它们通常使用高精度数学运算，即用64位数据来表示数字。

Commercial A.I. systems from companies like Google and OpenAI, by contrast, can be even faster. They can use approximations for tasks such as identifying images or selecting the next word in a sentence, relying on what are known as four-bit and eight-bit numbers that allow the systems to make many simpler calculations at once.

相比之下，谷歌和OpenAI等公司的商用AI系统甚至可以更快。它们可以使用近似值来完成识别图像或选择句子中下一个单词等任务，依靠所谓的四位和八位数字使系统能够同时进行更多更简单的计算。

“It is notable and impressive what China has done here, but they can’t hold a candle to these massive A.I. supercomputers that have been built by American A.I. labs” and others, Mr. Goodrich said.

古德里奇说：“中国在此方面的成就值得注意且令人印象深刻，但他们无法与美国AI实验室及其他机构建造的这些大规模AI超级计算机相提并论。”

U.S. national labs, which are the main buyers of some of the largest supercomputers, are eager to use A.I. to accelerate aspects of their scientific work. So they are adopting more of these less precise calculations, along with the 64-bit variety.

作为部分最大超级计算机主要买家的美国国家实验室迫切希望利用AI加速其科学工作的各个方面。因此它们正在采用更多这种精度较低的运算方式，同时也保留64位运算。

Though U.S. companies have historically dominated the ranks of the very largest supercomputers, foreign systems have sometimes vaulted to the top. A system in Japan, for example, ranked No. 1 on the list from 2020 to 2022.

尽管美国公司历来在最大的超级计算机的排名中占据主导地位，但外国系统有时也会跃居榜首。例如，日本的一个系统在2020年至2022年间曾排名第一。

“There’s a lot of talk that America is the only country capable of these systems,” said Addison Snell, an analyst at Intersect360 Research, a firm tracking the sector. “Then you find that other companies have capabilities, too.”

追踪该行业的Intersect360 Research分析师艾迪森·斯内尔表示：“很多人都说只有美国才有能力建造这些系统，但你会发现其他国家也有这样的能力。”

Powerful systems from China and Japan have regularly spurred the Department of Energy and other U.S. agencies to push for more funding for supercomputers. In November, the Trump administration started the Genesis Mission, which aims to exploit supercomputers at U.S. national labs, along with private companies, to supercharge A.I. and scientific research.

中国和日本的强大系统经常刺激能源部和其他美国机构争取更多超级计算机资金。今年11月，特朗普政府启动了“创世纪计划”，旨在利用美国国家实验室及私营公司的超级计算机来强力助推AI与科学研究。

GPUs, primarily developed by Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, have been a critical weapon in the recent supercomputer race. These chips excel in doing many chores simultaneously, including so-called vector calculations used in science and matrix multiplication at the heart of many A.I. tasks.

主要由英伟达和AMD开发的GPU是近期超级计算机竞赛中的关键武器。这些芯片擅长同时处理多项任务，包括科学中使用的所谓向量计算，以及作为许多AI任务核心的矩阵乘法运算。

When U.S. officials limited China’s access to GPUs and other powerful chips, as well as restricting exports of some machines for manufacturing the most advanced semiconductors, that caused it “to invest in developing architectures and technology to effectively have supercomputers that are at the same level as the U.S.’s highest-performing systems,” Dr. Dongarra said.

唐加拉说，当美国官员限制中国获取GPU及其他高性能芯片，并限制出口用于制造最先进半导体的部分机器时，中国转而“投资开发架构和技术，以有效打造出与美国最高性能系统处于同一水平的超级计算机”。

China’s LineShine system does not separate the traditional jobs of microprocessors and GPUs, as most high-end systems do. Instead, it builds in GPU-style tasks with specialized circuitry that accelerates matrix and vector calculations. That ability is embedded in chips that have a total of nearly 14 million computing cores, or tiny electronic brains, installed in 90 hardware cabinets.

中国的灵晟系统不像大多数高端系统那样有微处理器和GPU的传统分工。相反，它通过专用电路将GPU式的任务集成在内，加速了矩阵和向量计算。这种能力嵌入在总计拥有近1400万个计算核心（即微型电子大脑）的芯片中，这些芯片安装在90个硬件机柜里。

These chips are an original design based on a set of instructions licensed by Arm Holdings, a British company that is controlled by the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank. Arm’s technology is best known for powering smartphones but has lately been adapted by Nvidia, Amazon, Qualcomm and others for use in data centers.

这些芯片是基于软银集团旗下的英国公司Arm Holdings授权的指令集进行的原创设计。Arm的技术以驱动智能手机而闻名，但近来已被英伟达、亚马逊、高通等公司改造用于数据中心。

Arm has long operated in China. “Arm operates globally, including in China, in compliance with applicable export control laws and regulations,” a company spokeswoman said.

Arm在中国运营已久。该公司一位发言人表示：“Arm在全球范围内（包括中国）开展业务，均遵守适用的出口管制法律法规。”

“灵晟”系统使用的芯片基于英国公司Arm授权的一套指令集。

LineShine’s designers, who are supercomputer veterans in China, have not disclosed details about which company manufactured the chips or the level of chip production technology used, Dr. Dongarra said.

唐加拉表示，灵晟的设计者是中国超算资深人士，他们尚未披露芯片由哪家公司制造，也未披露所使用的芯片生产工艺水平。

He and other experts have long thought that China had systems capable of a No. 1 ranking, but laboratories there had not recently submitted test results.

他和其他专家长期以来一直认为中国拥有具备夺冠实力的系统，但那里的实验室近期并未提交测试结果。

“It doesn’t surprise me that there is a Chinese machine capable of being No. 1,” Mr. Snell said. “The surprise is that they wanted the acknowledgment.”

斯内尔说：“中国有实力夺冠的系统并不让我惊讶，令人惊讶的是他们想要这份认可。”

Dr. Dongarra, who wrote a detailed report on the new system, was told while visiting China that the system had been made without government funding, so the designers felt it was permissible to submit tests for the Top500 ranking, he said.

唐加拉撰写了一份关于该新系统的详细报告。他表示，访华期间有人告诉他，该系统是在没有政府资助的情况下建造的，因此设计者认为可以用测试结果申请TOP500排名。

The Shenzhen scientists have also sought recognition for the new machine through 14 submissions for the Gordon Bell Prize, which promotes solving sophisticated problems in science, Dr. Dongarra said. Three systems are finalists for that award, and three for a related prize in climate science.

唐加拉说，深圳的科学家们还通过提交14份申请角逐旨在促进解决复杂科学问题的“戈登·贝尔奖”，以寻求对新机器的认可。目前有三个系统入围该奖项，另有三个系统入围相关的气候科学奖项。

LineShine has been used for projects like a sophisticated simulation of Earth, including atmosphere, ocean, land and ice components, as well as a complex simulation of the human brain, according to Dr. Dongarra’s report.

根据唐加拉的报告，灵晟已被用于诸如地球（包括大气、海洋、陆地和冰层组成部分）的精密模拟，以及人脑的复杂模拟等项目。