China bypasses US GPU bans with 1.54-exaflops 'LineShine' supercomputer — CPU-only monster packs 2.4 million Huawei-designed Armv9 cores

China’s National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen has deployed LineShine, a CPU-only supercomputer built with tens of thousands of Armv9-based LX2 chips.

The system delivers 1.54 exaflops of BF16 performance and reportedly peaks even higher on an AI workload.

LineShine uses HBM and DDR5 memory plus a LingQi network, showing a large-scale CPU approach to exascale computing.

The deployment highlights how China is adapting to US GPU export controls by leaning on domestically designed hardware for AI and HPC.