China has unveiled the LineShine supercomputer, a groundbreaking CPU-only system capable of delivering 1.54 exaflops of AI training performance. This supercomputer is powered by 2.45 million Armv9 cores from Huawei, organized across 20,480 compute nodes, each housing two LX2 processors. The innovative architecture of the LX2 processor includes 304 CPU cores per chip, with each capable of 60.3 teraflops of FP64 performance and 240 teraflops of BF16 throughput. The system's memory configuration combines 32GB of on-package High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) with up to 256GB of off-package DDR5 memory, providing substantial bandwidth for complex scientific tasks. CPU-only architectures like LineShine eliminate the need for expensive data transfers between CPUs and GPUs, making them advantageous for handling massive datasets. However, they are typically less power-efficient and deliver lower AI throughput compared to GPU-based systems. China's push for such technology is largely influenced by US restrictions on GPU exports, indicating a strategic shift towards independence from foreign technology. While LineShine represents a significant engineering feat, it may not set a precedent for future AI supercomputers globally.