About this chart race
The lead changed hands twice in 33 years, but the numbers underneath moved enormously. The United States peaked at 309 of the 500 systems in 2006 and is down to 161 today. Japan started the very first list in 1993 with 109 systems and now has 44. China had none until 1995 and just 18 as late as 2006, then went from 41 in 2010 to a record 228 in 2019 — and has since fallen to 31, its lowest count since 2006, after Chinese sites largely stopped submitting results. The closest list of all was November 2016: China 171, the United States 170. The United Kingdom has fallen furthest, from 47 systems in 2007 to 11. Meanwhile the countries outside this top ten have grown from 44 systems in 1993 to 144 today, so every big country's share is shrinking as supercomputing spreads.
This animated ranking shows how systems in the top500 list changed across 10 series between 1993 and 2026. The bars re-order themselves as the years advance, so overtakes are visible as they happen rather than hidden inside a table. Use the list on the left to choose exactly who competes, drag the slider to jump to any year, or open the table view to read the underlying numbers.
As of 2026, United States leads with 161 systems.
Included in this race
United States, China, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Italy, India, Russia.
Source
Data from TOP500 — Countries/Regions over time statistics. Every figure shown comes from this source — nothing is estimated or generated.
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