Draft, not yet released. In stewardship review. Not indexed until the first approved release.

Executive summary

The edition on a few pages: the abstract, the key messages, the headline finding and what each steward reads in it.

6 min read1 figure0 tables11 notesNR-XTECH-HPC-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
    1. S.1 Abstract
    2. S.2 Key messages
    3. S.3 Headline finding
    4. S.4 At a glance
    5. S.5 What each steward reads in it
    6. S.6 What this edition is, and is not
  3. 1HPC is power, cooling and policy before it is speed
  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

S.1Abstract

High-performance computing matters to the Nexus programme as physical infrastructure. Large systems are built from millions of cores and accelerators that draw tens of megawatts, need liquid cooling and depend on chips, funding and export rules. The June 2026 TOP500 list placed a new Chinese system, LineShine, first with 2.198 exaflops on the Linpack benchmark and about 42.2 megawatts of power14. Five systems now sit at or above one exaflop1. The combined performance of the list rose from 14.99 to 18.73 exaflops in six months, and 276 of 500 systems use accelerators5. Efficiency leaders are small systems: the Green500 leader reached 73.282 gigaflops per watt at 46 kilowatts35. Data centres, the wider class that holds these machines, used 176 terawatt-hours in the United States in 2023, 4.4% of national electricity, and a DOE news item reports a 2028 range of 6.7% to 12%12. The US Department of Commerce extended a compliance timeline for advanced computing chips 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 2027 and lists 19 AI Factories1011. The US Exascale Computing Project spent USD 1.8 billion from 2016 to 202417. Water use, supply of accelerators and memory, and workforce are not bound in this edition. This baseline sets out what the evidence supports and where it is thin. It forecasts no system and ranks no country or vendor.

S.2Key messages

Six readings that frame the HPC baseline, and the eight questions this edition answers, each with its status and source.

  1. LineShine, with 2.198 exaflops on Linpack.14

    Which system leads the June 2026 list?Reported

  2. Five at or above one exaflop; JUPITER is listed at exactly 1.000.14

    How many systems reach an exaflop?Reported

  3. From 15.8 to 42.2 megawatts for the five largest.1

    How much power do the largest systems draw?Reported

  4. A 46 kilowatt system at 73.282 gigaflops per watt.35

    Who leads on efficiency?Reported

  5. US data centres used 4.4% of electricity in 2023.12

    How large is the wider data centre load?Reported

  6. BIS extended a timeline to the end of 2026 and issued guidance in May 2026.13

    What do export rules do now?Reported

  7. EuroHPC lists a budget of at least EUR 8.2 billion for 2021 to 2027.11

    What does Europe fund?Reported

  8. Power and siting limits against fast-growing demand. SCN-XT07-PWR-01

    What will 2027 test first?Expert input

S.3Headline finding

ReportedEQL 4NRF-XTECH-HPC-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-INF-001

LineShine, a CPU-only system at the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen, entered the June 2026 TOP500 list at first place with 2.198 exaflops on Linpack.

Figure S.1Linpack results of the five largest systems, June 2026 (exaflops)
ItemBar, scaled to the largest valueValue
LineShine · China2.198
El Capitan · United States1.809
Frontier · United States1.353
Aurora · United States1.012
JUPITER Booster · Germany1.000

Source: TOP500 list, June 20261. Bars show the Rmax values the list gives.

The list now holds five systems at or above one exaflop, on three continents. LineShine draws about 42.2 megawatts for 52.07 gigaflops per watt, and the page lists it as CPU-only4. China had not submitted systems for some years, according to search summaries, so earlier lists did not show all capacity30. Linpack is one benchmark, and LineShine leads HPCG while El Capitan leads the mixed-precision table5.

S.4At a glance

2.198exaflops

LineShine Linpack result4

18.73exaflops

combined list performance5

42.2MW

LineShine power1

73.282GFlops per watt

Green500 leader3

4.4%

US data centre electricity share, 202312

2030target

FugakuNEXT operation, a plan14

S.5What each steward reads in it

GCRI · KEY T

Technical Truth

The evidence supports reading HPC as physical infrastructure.

GRF · KEY M

Public Meaning

For most people the HPC story arrives as a headline about a faster machine or a data centre.

GRA · KEY F

Capital Meaning

Readiness implications only. Public programmes carry the largest systems, and policy sets access to chips.

NEXUS

Synthesis

HPC is well described by lists and thinly measured as a system.

S.6What this edition is, and is not

What this edition is

A baseline: the 2026 state of HPC and advanced computing as infrastructure and the couplings through which it carries risk into other systems. It synthesises published evidence and ranks no country, company or asset.

What it is not

Not a forecast of any machine or programme, a technology order of nations or vendors, an endorsement of any vendor or an assessment of any programme. Export controls, funding and standards are decisions of competent authorities.

What comes next

National, regional and sector evidence feeds the 2027 HPC edition through the federation. Each edition reports what changed against this baseline: observations, source revisions, method changes, scenario updates and corrections.

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. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. 10EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (ed.), AI Factories (programme page; 19 AI Factories and 13 antennas stated; the page lists 18 sites and 15 antennas). EuroHPC JU, Luxembourg. Observation year 2026. 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. 30UNVERIFIED, not opened: HPCwire (ed.), Surprise: Chinese LineShine takes number 1 on TOP500 (23 June 2026), and press coverage that China had stopped submitting to the list in 2023, taken from search-result summaries; the HPCwire page returned an access error. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  11. 14RIKEN (ed.), FugakuNEXT project with Fujitsu and NVIDIA (news item, 22 August 2025; MONAKA-X CPU, NVIDIA GPU; more than 5 times hardware performance; up to 100 times application performance in about 40 MW; more than 600 exaflops FP8 sparse; operation around 2030). RIKEN, Wako. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back

Cite this summary

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Executive summary: Executive summary. 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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