Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s El Capitan has retained its position as the fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the latest TOP500 list. This three-time No. 1 system surpassed its competitors with a formidable performance of 1.809 Exaflop/s, thus extending its lead over Frontier, which holds the second position at 1.353 Exaflop/s, and Aurora at No. 3 with 1.012 Exaflop/s. The rankings for the top ten supercomputers remain unchanged from the previous list released in June 2025, indicating a stability in the top echelon of computational power.
The increasing performance of El Capitan is attributed to its expanded capabilities, which include 11.34 million cores and upgraded hardware. It features AMD’s fourth-generation EPYC processors and AMD Instinct MI300A accelerators, working in conjunction with the HPE Slingshot interconnect for enhanced data transfer speeds.
In comparison, the Frontier system utilizes AMD’s third-generation EPYC processors, while Aurora is equipped with Intel’s Xeon CPU Max Series processors, all optimizing their respective architectures to achieve impressive computing benchmarks.
The international landscape shows a significant presence for U.S. supercomputers, with the department leading the count. El Capitan, Frontier, and Aurora are primarily built for Department of Energy facilities, indicating the critical investment in high-performance computing in the United States.
Interestingly, fourth on the list is JUPITER, constructed in Germany, which recently reached the landmark of one Exaflop performance. Meanwhile, the competition among the top systems illustrates the rapid technological advancements in the field, emphasizing the dominance of both AMD and Intel processors in supercomputing capabilities.
For detailed metrics and the complete ranking of the fastest supercomputers, check the TOP500 list.
