China's world-beating supercomputer fails to impress some potential clients

The Tianhe-2 has again topped the global rankings, but a lack of investment on software limits its use, researchers say

The Tianhe-2 at the Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou. It has been used in railway design, astrophysics and genetics. Photo: Xinhua

The mainland's billion-yuan supercomputer might be the most powerful in the world, but some researchers say its benefit to them is limited by its high operating cost and a lack of software.

Tianhe-2 last week held onto its first-place ranking in the Top 500 charts, which measures the capacity of the world's supercomputers. It performed at a sustained 33.86 petaflops, or quadrillions of calculations per second.

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