Chapter 179: Military Pledge

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Speaking of which, why did Chen Jin decide to open his own Weibo? How could he keep his low profile if he had already attracted 20 million followers in such a short time? In fact, with Xing Hai Technologies’ current popularity and Chen Jin’s net worth, it was rather impossible for him to keep a low profile even if he wanted to. There were perks of having a high profile. With millions of followers and such huge visiting traffic at his Weibo, the whole world would know about any tiny piece of gossip that he let out. The advertising effects it would bring forth would be tremendous. Besides, Chen Jin intended to leave his new phone, along with his Weibo account, in the villa to be operated by his Avatar robot. He, on the other hand, would operate the robot to post on Weibo, forward posts, and handle interaction with other Weibo users from a distance. Under shared vision, his Avatar robot was equivalent to himself. This was very safe for him as well. He could do anything he wanted to on Weibo without revealing his own trace. “It’s so good to have a substitute.”

Aside from this, a few days ago on planet Haierfa, Alice had been behind schedule for a few months, but had finally tackled the last technical difficulty in the production of the human replica robots. Now, she had the ability to produce human replica robots in small batches. Chen Jin immediately placed many orders. “Alice, make another 21 Guard robots, one Housekeeping robot, four Nanny robots, and six Chef robots. I demand all of them to have at least a punch force of 500 kilograms.”

By then, the total number of Guard robots would have increased to 26 units. 20 of them would be allotted to the villa. The remaining six would be by his side, ensuring the safety of his real body.

As for the Housekeeping robot, Nanny robot, Chef robot, and other robots under the Life Function Robot class, their main purpose was for convenience and improving the quality of life at the villa. Especially with six Chef robots, they could provide a variety of scrumptious meals from day to night. Whatever one wanted to eat, they could simply ask the Chef robots to prepare it for them. It would take a quick five minutes, or at most, not more than two hours for them to prepare the food. They could make more than 10,000 dishes ranging from Eastern to Western food.

The villa’s security was also improved to the maximum level. The villa, which seemed nothing out of ordinary from its exterior, was actually equipped with innumerable micro detectors no more than the size of a grain of rice. Not only were they scattered across every inch of the soil or walls in villa 8, but the whole of Junting Grand Court was also under surveillance. It would respond immediately if any movements and abnormalities were detected. The system would analyze the threat level and do preparations in advance. Therefore, even if the real Chen Jin decided to stay in the villa, he would not encounter much danger under these perfect security measures.

However… The saying went, “Don’t be afraid of ‘what,’ be afraid of ‘what if’.” With technological methods available to date, there were countless methods that some powerful forces could use to kill him. For example, firing a missile or whatnot, the entire villa would be blasted to the heavens. So, it would still be better for his real self to keep a lower profile. Occasionally coming over to enjoy the villa would suffice.

…

In the following month, all kinds of news poured in. The first was from Zhong Xin International. With the help of the artifact in scientific research, the “Virtual Factory,” the company had made rapid progression in their chip manufacturing process. In less than three months, the company’s R&D team had made a number of major improvements. The conformity rate of the 14-nanometer chip had been improved to a staggering 99.2%. It had almost no room for further improvements.

After cutting off dozens of trivial processes, production efficiency had also increased by 40%, allowing the production of the 14-nanometer chip to be boosted from 250,000 units per day to 350,000 units per day. Both the yield and efficiency of the production line of Zhong Xin International’s 14-nanometer chip reached the highest level in the industry.

The company’s chairman, Zhang Wei Jin, said excitedly, “Enough, this level is enough! If we make any more adjustments, it will deviate from the marginal benefit curve. We can halt our exploration in the production technology of the 14-nanometer chip. Next, with the help of the ‘Virtual Factory,’ let us put all our efforts into developing the process technology of the 7-nanometer chip! Let us strive to realize it in around a year’s time and put on a good show for the Z’s!”

However, at this time, shocking news came from Treasure Island that caught Zhang Wei Jin and the others unprepared. Mossy Electrics Corporation from Treasure Island announced at the spur of the moment, “We have successfully realized small-scale production of the 5-nanometer chip; mass production can be attained within approximately two years.”

As the company that had the most powerful technical prowess in the field of chip manufacturing, Mossy Electrics Corporation had been studying the process technology of the 5-nanometer chip for five long years and had injected tens of billions of dollars of funds in their research. Accomplishing the small-scale production of the 5-nanometer chip before the end of the year 2020 was merely a checkpoint in their bigger plan.

Once the news was announced, the stock price of Zhong Xin International plunged by 20%.

In the emergency meeting, Zhang Wei Jing seemed to have aged a few years. He said with a bitter smile, “Yes indeed, we’re improving. But we have forgotten the fact that the others are improving as well. When the chips were still at 65 nanometers, many people were screaming that we had reached the limits of Moore’s law. They kept on yelling even when the chips were at 14 nanometers, 10 nanometers… and yet, the process technology of chips are still improving. Actually, through a variety of technical means, the chips can be pushed to their 3-nanometer limit. This competition has not ended yet. We must not have even the slightest optimism in our current state! We must not relax even for a brief moment! We must work over the clock and catch up to them! Now, the company’s financial situation is rather good. I’ve decided to take out 18 billion dollars to establish another R&D production line of the 7-nanometer chip! Hold a general shareholders’ meeting and a press conference, tell our shareholders and stock buyers of our military pledge: we will realize the mass production of the 7-nanometer chip within 10 months, if we should fail, they can dine upon my head! I, Zhang Wei Jin, will be the first to resign as an apology!” Zhang Wei Jin pounded the table with all of his strength, with red hot blood cruising all over his face as he came out with these remarkable words.

Military pledge. Tackling 7 nanometers within 10 months. All the higher executives of the company were shocked. One of them said stutteringly, “Mr. Zhang, there is no problem about giving our shareholders our military pledge, but to skip an entire generation of chips and realize mass production of the 7-nanometer in just 10 months… is this a little too risky?”

R & D director Yang Ming said, “Don’t worry. Even if we just have 10 months, we are more than 80% sure that we can accomplish it. Mr. Chen from Xing Hai Technologies said that he can provide us the ‘Virtual Factory’ technology which has a 99.9999% fidelity to aid us in our R&D. Besides, we have approached the University of National Defense. We intend to rent the supercomputer with the fastest operating speed within our boundaries, the Heavenly River-3E, for a whole eight months duration! With the help of this supercomputer, our R&D speed will be 100 times higher than normal. We can definitely realize the 7-nanometer chip within 10 months! If the R&D goes smoothly, we might not even need 10 months. Maybe in eight months or even six months, we could overmaster the related tech and realize our promise! We can give our shareholders and stock buyers a perfect account and live up to their trust in us!”

Upon hearing his words, all the executives got a shine in their eyes as they became collectively excited. CEO Liang Meng Nan said, “Actually, the time I gave myself was at most eight months. With the Virtual Factory and a supercomputer with an operating speed of 10 billion billion times per second, if we still couldn’t wrap up the process technology of the 7-nanometer chip with even a hundredfold R&D speed, we can go kill ourselves with tofu.”

Just… considering the acceptability of the mass population of shareholders and netizens, it was better to keep things less exaggerated.

…

The next morning, in the internal conference for shareholders, as Zhang Wei Jin and other personnel revealed a portion of the technical details, the shareholder’s confidence was greatly boosted. Not only did they dispell the idea of selling their stocks, but on the contrary, they increased their stock holdings.

However, during the news conference in the afternoon, Zhang Wei Jin’s military pledge of “taking down 7-nanometers within 10 months” while facing the media triggered an uproar among the netizens. They also dropped a bombshell in the chip industry.

Or rather, a bombshell of laughter.

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