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HPC is power, cooling and policy before it is speed

Part I describes systems and their couplings. It ranks no country or operator and assesses no authority.

5 min read2 figures1 table10 notesNR-XTECH-HPC-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1HPC is power, cooling and policy before it is speed
    1. 1.1 The questions this part answers
    2. 1.2 The argument
    3. 1.3 Twenty couplings between five systems
  4. 2Key findings
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Power and siting limits meet fast-growing demand
  8. 6Readings from the other desks
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

1.1The questions this part answers

Key questions

  • Where is HPC risk concentrated?
  • Which couplings carry HPC shocks into other systems?
  • Which HPC capabilities hold under compound stress?
  • What must 2027 evidence measure first?

In this part

  • Narrative
  • Headline finding
  • Lead figure
  • Five footprint and governance chapters
  • Twelve-domain reading
  • Sector screens
  • Dependency matrix
  • Risk objects
  • Capability ladder
  • Scenario
  • Three lenses
  • Portfolio

1.2The argument

High-performance computing is usually discussed as a speed race. The 2026 evidence reads it as infrastructure: millions of cores and accelerators that draw tens of megawatts, sit in purpose-built halls and depend on chips, funding and export rules1913.

The system evidence is strong. LineShine reached 2.198 exaflops on Linpack at about 42.2 megawatts, and four other systems reached one exaflop or more14. The combined list rose to 18.73 exaflops, and 276 of 500 systems use accelerators5. Lists show submitted systems only.

Efficiency and demand tell a different story. The Green500 leader is a 46 kilowatt system at 73.282 gigaflops per watt, and El Capitan reached 60.9435. Outside the lists, US data centres used 4.4% of national electricity in 2023 and a 2028 range of 6.7% to 12% is reported12.

The policy base is moving. BIS extended a timeline to the end of 2026 and issued guidance in May 202613. EuroHPC reports a budget of at least EUR 8.2 billion for 2021 to 202711. Cooling water, chip supply and workforce are the least measured parts.

Figure 1.1How large are mixed-precision benchmark results on the June 2026 list? HPL-MxP, exaflops

Mixed-precision results are several times larger than Linpack results for the same machines. El Capitan reached 16.7 exaflops against 1.809 on Linpack. The two benchmarks measure different work, and the table is not a measure of useful output45.

ItemBar, scaled to the largest valueValue
El Capitan16.7
Aurora11.6
Frontier11.4
LineShine7.92
JUPITER Booster7.92

Source: as cited in the note to this figure. Year 2026.

Figure ID FIG-XTECH-HPC-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-01-003

16.7exaflops

El Capitan HPL-MxP5

1.809exaflops

El Capitan Linpack1

22.00petaflops

LineShine HPCG5

17.41petaflops

El Capitan HPCG5

1.3Twenty couplings between five systems

The HPC-centred matrix types the twenty couplings between the five core systems, read for their HPC content. Strengths are Nexus estimates (ESTIMATED) from the cited evidence and analogue events; they set the graph that 2027 evidence will test.

Figure 1.2Couplings between the five systems

Each line is one coupling from one system to another, drawn by the strength the edition assigns. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events.

  • Strong
  • Moderate
  • Weak

Source: this edition’s coupling matrix (Table 1.1); status Estimated.

Table 1.1Coupling matrix: from the row system to the column system
From, toWATENEFOOHLTBIO
WAT Water·WEAK
facility cooling		WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link
ENE EnergyWEAK
cooling load, not bound		·WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link
FOO FoodWEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		·WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link
HLT HealthWEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		·WEAK
no documented link
BIO BiodiversityWEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		·
Strength: strong, moderate or weak; a Nexus estimate (status Estimated) from cited evidence and analogue events. The scale is defined in Annex A.

Transmission paths

  1. 01

    ENE → INF

    Facility power and cooling limit siting and scale.

    Reported power of the five largest systems1

  2. 02

    TRD → INF

    Licence rules shape access to advanced computing items.

    Reported BIS timeline and guidance13

  3. 03

    FIN → INF

    Public programmes fund systems and software.

    Reported ECP and EuroHPC budgets1711

  4. 04

    INF → ENE

    Accelerated systems add load to data centres.

    Inferred 276 accelerated systems5; US share12

  5. 05

    GOV → ENE

    Reporting rules make facility energy visible.

    Inferred EU delegated regulation34

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 1TOP500 (ed.), TOP500 list, June 2026, 67th edition (list page; top systems, Rmax, Rpeak, cores and power). TOP500 project, Hamburg. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  2. 9EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (ed.), JUPITER launching Europe’s exascale era (news item, 5 September 2025; about 24,000 GH200 superchips; warm-water cooling; funding shares; power and budget not stated). EuroHPC JU, Luxembourg. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  3. 13US Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (ed.), BIS homepage (notice of 16 January 2025 on advanced computing integrated circuits; extension of 7 April 2026 to 31 December 2026; guidance of May 2026 on Country Group D:5 and Macau; full texts not opened). BIS, Washington. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  4. 4TOP500 (ed.), LineShine Debuts at No. 1 as the TOP500 Enters a New Global Exascale Era (news release, 23 June 2026; LineShine, HPCG, HPL-MxP, Green500 values). TOP500 project, Hamburg. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  5. 5TOP500 (ed.), Highlights, June 2026 (list totals, accelerator and processor shares, HPCG and HPL-MxP tables; the page gives some figures that differ from the list page). TOP500 project, Hamburg. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  6. 3TOP500 (ed.), Green500 list, June 2026 (list page; top five by gigaflops per watt). TOP500 project, Hamburg. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  7. 12US Department of Energy (ed.), DOE releases new report evaluating increase in electricity demand from data centres (news item, 20 December 2024; 176 TWh in 2023, 4.4% of US electricity; 6.7% to 12% projected for 2028). US Department of Energy, Washington. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  8. 11EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (ed.), Discover EuroHPC JU (about page; budget of at least EUR 8.2 billion for 2021 to 2027; Council Regulations 2021/1173, 2024/1732 and 2026/150). EuroHPC JU, Luxembourg. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  9. 17Exascale Computing Project (ed.), project site (2016 to 2024; USD 1.8 billion; about 2,800 collaborators; concluded). US Department of Energy, Oak Ridge. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  10. 34UNVERIFIED, not opened: European Commission, Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1364 of 14 March 2024 on the first phase of the establishment of a common Union rating scheme for data centres (500 kW threshold, annual reporting by 15 May), taken from law firm summaries; EUR-Lex returned no content. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 1: HPC is power, cooling and policy before it is speed. In Exponential Technology Report 2026: HPC and Advanced Computing (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-XTECH-HPC-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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