Sugon
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Supercomputers, Computer hardware |
| Predecessor | Institute of Computer Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences |
| Founded | January 1, 1996 in Beijing, China |
| Fate | Planned merger with Hygon Information Technology (announced 2025) |
| Headquarters | Beijing , China |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Supercomputers (Dawning series) |
| Owner | Chinese Academy of Sciences (shareholder) |
Sugon (), officially known as Dawning Information Industry Company Limited, is a Beijing-based Chinese manufacturer specializing in supercomputers. Emerging from research conducted at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Sugon continues to maintain strong collaborative relationships with CAS, including formal strategic partnership agreements.
History
Sugon's origins trace back to the Institute of Computer Science within CAS, where its inaugural supercomputer, Dawning No. 1, was developed in 1993 as part of China's government-backed 863 Program aimed at advancing high technology. The enterprise was officially founded in 1996 to bring this technology to market.
Under the ongoing support of the 863 program, Sugon advanced its portfolio of high-performance computing systems, producing notable models such as the Dawning 5000A and the 6000 series. The company went public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2014, with CAS retaining a shareholding.
In May 2025, Sugon revealed plans to merge with Hygon Information Technology, marking a significant step toward consolidation within China's computing sector.
U.S. sanctions
The United States Department of Defense has identified Sugon as having connections to the People's Liberation Army, leading to its inclusion on the Bureau of Industry and Security's Entity List in 2019 over concerns related to U.S. national security. Subsequently, in November 2020, then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring American individuals and companies from holding equity in entities linked to the Chinese military, including Sugon.
Further reinforcing these measures, in October 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense designated Sugon among "Chinese military companies" operating within the United States, tightening restrictions on its commercial activities in American markets.
Supercomputers
Initially branded as Dawning and later adopting the Sugon name, the company’s supercomputers are identified by both "Dawning" and "Sugon" labels. Significant models include:
Dawning No.1
The first-generation supercomputer Dawning No.1 (Shuguang Yihao), certified in October 1993, achieved a performance of 640 million FLOPS by utilizing twelve Motorola 88100 and 88200 CPUs. More than twenty units were manufactured, all operating on UNIX V.
Dawning 1000
Introduced and certified in May 1995, the Dawning 1000 (initially called Dawning No.2) delivered computational speeds of 2.5 GFLOPS. This line included variants such as the Dawning 1000A and 1000L.
Dawning 2000
Released in 1996, the Dawning 2000 series culminated with the 2000-II model reaching up to 111.7 GFLOPS. These systems featured cluster architectures supporting up to 164 CPUs and operated on UNIX; they received state certification in January 2000.
Dawning 3000
Certified in March 2001, the Dawning 3000 cluster comprised ten racks housing a total of 280 CPUs and consumed approximately 25 kW of power while achieving a peak performance of 400 GFLOPS. This system supported key initiatives such as China’s involvement in human genome mapping projects.
Dawning 4000A
Ranked among the world’s top ten supercomputers on the June 2004 TOP500 list, the Dawning 4000A installed at Shanghai Supercomputer Center attained speeds of 806.1 billion FLOPS using over 2,560 AMD Opteron processors, with peak capabilities reaching up to eight teraflops.
Dawning 5000
Originally, the Dawning 5000 series was designed to utilize domestic Loongson processors. However, the Shanghai Supercomputer Center required compatibility with Microsoft Windows, while Loongson processors operated solely on Linux. Consequently, the Dawning 5000A was equipped with 7,680 AMD Opteron Quad-core processors running at 1.9 GHz, amounting to a total of 30,720 cores linked through Infiniband. The system covers an area of 75 square meters and has a power consumption of 700 kW. Delivering a peak performance of 180 teraflops, it achieved official certification in June 2008.
In the November 2008 TOP500 ranking, it secured the 10th position and stood out as the largest supercomputer utilizing Windows HPC Server 2008 during that evaluation. This system is housed at the Shanghai Supercomputer Center and operates on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10.
Dawning 6000
Introduced in 2011, the Dawning 6000 boasted a performance capability of 300 TFLOPS and featured more than 3,000 eight-core Loongson 3B processors, achieving an energy efficiency of 3.2 GFLOP/W. It has been recognized as the "first supercomputer composed entirely of Chinese-made components," with anticipated processing speeds surpassing one PFLOP (one quadrillion calculations per second). For comparison, the leading supercomputer as of June 2014 operated at a speed of 33 PFLOPS. A petascale system was under development with an expected release between 2012 and 2013.