China News Service, Jinan, September 14 (Reporter Liu Yue) “For the first time, China’s supercomputer has a Chinese ‘core’.”
On September 13, the 2026 National Cyber Security Publicity Week media collection group entered the National Supercomputing Center in Jinan. In the exhibition hall, when the commentator finished these words, the surroundings seemed to be quiet for a moment.
On the booth, the model of "Shenwei Blue Light" stood quietly, as if it still carried the surging heat when the machine was running. Looking back at this moment, this petaflop supercomputer, which is completely developed with independent processors, is not only the starting point for China's supercomputing to have "Chinese core", but also marks the coordinates of Jinan's supercomputing to continue to break through.
From following, running alongside, and then leading in some fields, China's long road to supercomputing research has been condensed between the models of a few machines and the light and shadow of an exhibition hall.
The road China’s supercomputing has taken is a road of independent innovation forced by the blockade.
In the early years, our country was restricted in high-end computing equipment for a long time, and even encountered the dilemma of "glass house" - machines can be bought, but the use process is monitored and the research results are censored. It is this kind of pain that makes generations of scientific researchers determined to take key core technologies into their own hands.
From using an abacus to complete hundreds of millions of calculations under extremely difficult conditions to breaking through petascale calculation difficulties, China's supercomputing has completed a leap from scratch, from following to running parallel to leading in some fields in just over fifty years. Jinan is an important coordinate in this breakout history.
The predecessor of the National Supercomputing Center in Jinan can be traced back to the Shandong Provincial Computing Center established in 1976. It is one of the earliest provincial computing centers in my country. From participating in the construction of the Yellow River cable-stayed bridge in Jinan, to building the high-performance computing platform of the Provincial Academy of Sciences in 2004 and exploring industrialization business, Jinan supercomputing has always resonated with the national needs.
In 2011, the National Supercomputing Center in Jinan was officially established, and Sunway Blu-ray landed in Jinan, becoming my country's first petaflop supercomputer built entirely with independent CPUs (central processing units). It has achieved independent localization of core components, making China the third country in the world that can independently build petaflop supercomputing after the United States and Japan.
Since then, Jinan’s independent supercomputing pace has continued to accelerate: in 2018, the Sunway E-class prototype system was launched. It is only the size of a cabinet, the volume is about 1/9 of Sunway Blu-ray, and the cost is about 1/10. The performance of a single cabinet is three times that of Sunway Blu-ray; in 2021, Sunway Super The computing platform has been completed, with high-performance computing power reaching 60PFlops and artificial intelligence computing power reaching 2000PFlops; in 2022, the new generation of Sunway Blu-ray II will be deployed, achieving a comprehensive leap in computing power, system performance and application support capabilities with a nationalized system.
Behind the iteration of each heavy machine is the strenuous climb to break records again and again. Wu Xiaoming, director of the Shandong Provincial Computing Center (National Supercomputing Jinan Center), said that since 2022, Jinan Supercomputing has ranked first in the world in the IO500 list (a global storage system performance benchmark list in the field of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence) for many consecutive years; in 2025, Jinan Supercomputing teamed up with Huawei to refresh three core performance world records in the MLPerf® Storage v2.0 benchmark test results, ranking first in the world.
From "China Core" to "China Speed", Jinan Supercomputing has become the epitome of China's supercomputing counterattack and breakthrough.
Having "Chinese core" is just the starting point. Computing power can’t just stay on the list, but also flow to thousands of industries. In recent years, Jinan Supercomputing has adhered to the "four aspects" to serve the top ten industries in Shandong and strive to make computing power a public good like water and electricity. Through the self-built Shandong computing network platform, Jinan Supercomputing connects 16 cities in Shandong Province, realizing diverse computing power management and services, and building the country's first computing network infrastructure covering provincial areas.
On top of this “computing network”, Jinan Supercomputing creates a highland integrating data, computing power, and algorithms. Supercomputing empowerment has already penetrated into the national economy and people’s livelihood. Here, the massive data of Tianyan FAST has been analyzed, helping to discover many pulsars; the HALOC digital twin system provides scientific support for ecological protection in the Yellow River Basin; the national air quality forecast and warning system operates stably to protect daily people's livelihood; industrial simulation serves local leading companies such as SINOTRUK, Weichai, and CRRC, accelerating the research and development of high-speed rail and high-end equipment; large industrial models such as Biancang Traditional Chinese Medicine and Zhifeng Science and Technology explore new boundaries of AI applications in the fields of traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment and intellectual property rights.
The Shandong Computing Network, led by Jinan Supercomputing, has taken a key step towards making computing power as universally accessible as water and electricity. Computing power is no longer a distant technological term, but a real productivity factor.
When computing power penetrates into the industry, Jinan's industrial ecology will grow accordingly. In 2022, Jinan High-tech Zone was approved as one of the first batch of "National Cybersecurity Education Technology Industry Integrated Development Pilot Zones"; in 2025, the pilot zone was approved as a national cybersecurity talent training base project, becoming the only pilot zone in the country that has been approved for a base project. By the end of 2025, the scale of Jinan's core network security industry has reached 19 billion yuan, accounting for more than 60% of the province's network security industry scale; the city's computing power has reached 6451P, and intelligent computing power accounts for 83.2%, and is expected to exceed 10,000P in 2026; there are nearly 8,000 data companies, and the data industry scale has reached more than 300 billion yuan.
Groups of figures are a solid step for Jinan to move from a "supercomputing center" to an "industrial highland".
The prosperity of industry will ultimately depend on the city's energy level and national competitiveness. With the National Supercomputing Jinan Central Science and Technology Park as the center and a surrounding area of 19.55 square kilometers, the Jinan Supercomputing Science and Technology City will be built. The "three-park co-construction" of science and technology park, industrial park and entrepreneurship park is being promoted here to attract high-level talents and scientific research institutions. The Supercomputing Science and Technology Park is the first supercomputing theme science and technology park in the world. It has established cooperation with 2 Nobel Prize winners and 20 academician teams, and has built a supercomputing ecosystem with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Shandong University, Huawei, Inspur and other schools and enterprises.
Currently, the game between major powers continues to escalate and high-tech competition becomes increasingly fierce. Computing power has become a key production factor in the digital economy era and an important component of national strategic security. Whoever controls computing power will control the initiative in the era of artificial intelligence. From Sunway Blu-ray to Sunward Supercomputing, from Shandong Computing Network to the Yellow River Basin Computing Network Alliance, from supporting domestic large-scale models to serving the "Eastern Digital and Western Computing" project, every step of Jinan's supercomputing is based on the rhythm of national science and technology self-reliance and self-reliance.
According to the plan, by 2030, Jinan Supercomputing will build more than 20 national, provincial and ministerial-level innovation platforms, form a comprehensive independent supercomputing ecosystem, drive an output value of 100 billion yuan, and become an important support for the national regional science and technology innovation center. Facing future development, Wu Xiaoming revealed that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, Jinan Supercomputing will continue to undertake major national scientific and technological tasks, make every effort to develop the next generation of supercomputers, and continue to consolidate the country's core supercomputing infrastructure capabilities.
If the core is strong, it is considered strong, and if it is strong, the network is safe. From September 14th to 20th, the 2026 National Cyber Security Publicity Week was held nationwide, with important activities such as the opening ceremony and summit forum being held in Jinan City. When the grand event kicked off, through the window of network security, the world saw not only the booming ecology of Jinan's network security industry, but also the confidence that China's supercomputing industry had to break through the blockade and lead in innovation.
From a "China Core" to a "China Network", from a "Science and Technology City" to a "Road to a Strong Country", Jinan is using computing power as the pen and innovation as the ink to write a new chapter in the land of Qilu as a technological power. Computing power is national strength, and innovation is the future. China's supercomputing is running at an acceleration that belongs to this era at a solid pace that is independent and controllable.
