Video Game Empire

Li Xuan threw a bomb and left, leaving CUHK students chatting and discussing. (First Release) Supercomputers are known as a bright pearl in the computer industry, and have been regarded as an important symbol for measuring the level of scientific and technological development and comprehensive national strength of a country for a long time.

It took 30 years and tens of billions of capital in later generations to finally achieve the world's fastest computing speed in the latest "Tianhe-2" supercomputer. This was also dubbed by countless netizens as a chip stacking game, and was sprayed as a representative of high speed and low efficiency.

There is no doubt that supercomputers can play a role in scientific research, especially in the defense industry. China's first supercomputer "Galaxy-1" should be in full swing now, and it will come out next year if nothing else happens.

The difference between a supercomputer and a large computer, the former is good at numerical computing, the latter is good at non-numerical computing. This is too professional to say it in a common way. Large-scale computers are mainly used for data processing. For example, major banks have thousands of customers every day to make countless deposits, withdrawals, transfers and other transactions.

It does not necessarily require its own computer system, the operation rate must be very abnormal, but the throughput must be large and very stable. Therefore, the mainframe pursues large-scale computing, not high-speed computing. In order to maintain the stability of the metamorphosis, his accessory settings will be more conservative, and the first developed technology is rarely used.

And supercomputers are mainly used for scientific research, especially the defense industry. For example, when nuclear weapons are developed, a large number of numerical calculations must be carried out to simulate data such as the killing effectiveness of nuclear weapons. When China developed two bombs and one satellite. Using a hand-cranked computer and crowd tactics, the scrap paper used can fill several rooms. With supercomputers, results can be produced in just a few days.

There are some things money can't buy. In fact in the early eighties. The most advanced computers imported from the West in China can only be medium-sized machines. And there must be preconditions - the person responsible for controlling the operation of the computer must be a foreigner.

For example, a geological simulation operation should be carried out in China to explore whether a certain block has the basis for the formation of oil. The Chinese side can only hand over the pre-designed series of variable values ​​to the technicians sent by the computer sales company, who will control the computer to get the results and then feed them back to the Chinese side. The Chinese personnel who paid for the computer were not allowed to approach the computer. It is this kind of humiliation under the crotch that makes China have to come up with its own supercomputer.

Supercomputer can be described as a high-investment, low-return industry, and its commercial application is much smaller than that of mainframes. Companies capable of manufacturing supercomputers are rarely profitable. Most supercomputers are designed and manufactured with state capital behind them.

The reason why Li Xuan wants to develop a supercomputer. The reasons are similar to the domestic situation. Not long ago, the Oriental Research Institute purchased two newest caryx-mp supercomputers, which were just launched this year, from Cray Corporation of the United States. This is the fastest supercomputer in the world today, with a rate of 914 million floating-point calculations per second.

The Oriental Research Institute plans to install one of the two computers in the Silicon Valley R&D Center, while the other will be installed in the Oriental Experimental Building in the Hong Kong headquarters. These two computers are mainly used to simulate chip operations, so that a large number of design omissions can be quickly found in the chip design stage, and the R&D efficiency can be improved.

But a supercomputer is a regulated special commodity, and the one ordered by the Silicon Valley R&D center was produced by Cray without any restrictions. And the installation and debugging are completed. The supercomputer in the Hong Kong headquarters was stuck when it was reviewed by the US Congress.

Li Xuan asked two public relations companies to help lobby the relevant lawmakers. But Li Xuan originally customized caryx-mp. But it was forcibly changed to another model cary-1. Cary-1, Cray's last model of supercomputer, has a top speed of only 250 million operations per second, less than one-third of the latest caryx-mp.

Although the cary-1 sells for only $1 million. Much cheaper than caryx-mp's $1.5 million. But including the lobbying costs of the public relations firm, Li Xuan's total cost of buying the cry-1 supercomputer reached $1.6 million.

And because Hong Kong is backed by the mainland. The use of this cary-1 is also subject to Cray's supervision. It can be foreseen that its later use and maintenance costs. Certainly much higher than that supercomputer in Silicon Valley.

Spend more money, but buy back a product that lags behind. Such a fiery thing naturally made Li Xuan very depressed. So he simply decided to develop a supercomputer by Dongfang Electronics himself.

Of course, as the boss of a large company, Li Xuan can never set up R&D projects indiscriminately just because he is angry. This is definitely a taboo in company management. The reason why Li Xuan made up his mind to let the Oriental Research Institute start the supercomputer research and development project is not only to fight for a breath, but more importantly, to make a name for the entire Oriental Electronics Company.

Just like in the 1990s, ibm's "Deep Blue" supercomputer and world chess champion Kasparov's century duel. IBM invested a lot of manpower and material resources for the "Deep Blue" project, and as a result, it only had two six battles with Kasparov, with one loss and one victory. After that, the "Deep Blue" supercomputer was quickly dismantled, and the unconvinced Kasparov was not given a third chance to fight.

It can be said that the "Deep Blue" supercomputer did not bring any benefits to IBM except for a documentary that recorded the two peak duels between artificial intelligence and the human brain. But the topic of man-machine battle has become the hottest topic in the 1990s, and it has been hyped by the global media. The brand promotion value this brings to IBM is beyond the reach of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising investment.

After the initial rapid development, Dongfang Electronics Co., Ltd. will soon come to the time when it needs to establish its own high-end brand value. Therefore, Li Xuan's requirements for supercomputers are also different from those of the mainland government, which is intensively developing the first supercomputer. What needs to be solved in China now is the question of what is and what is not. The computing speed of the "Galaxy-1" that will be launched next year is actually only 100 million times per second, far behind the caryx-mp supercomputer that Cray Corporation released this year.

And Li Xuan's purpose is to make a name for himself, so ordinary supercomputers don't make much sense to him. What he needs is one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, and only then can he attract the world's attention.

Of course, developing a supercomputer is by no means an easy task. First of all, R&D talents with relevant experience are the basic prerequisites. It is impossible for Li Xuan to mobilize the scientific research force of the entire country to support it like the domestic one. But he also has his own advantages, at least he doesn't need to cross the river by feeling the stones. The Oriental Research Institute has just dug up the best person who can shoulder the "Pearl of the Orient" supercomputer project.

"Mr. Chen, I kept you waiting for a long time. There was a car accident in the Hung Hom tunnel, and the result was a severe blockage. I was late for the first meeting with you. I'm very sorry!" Li Xuan said apologetically immediately after entering the door.

"Mr. Li, hello! It's okay, I was accompanied by Dean Zhao, and I just visited the experimental building. The equipment here is very advanced!" Chen Shiqing smiled at Zhao Weiming, who was with him, and shook his head gently to express himself. don't care.

Li Xuan quickly looked at the man in front of him who was wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses and smiled very politely. The ancestral home of Mr. Chen Shiqing is southern Fujian, and his family went to Taiwan in 1949. After graduating from Taiwan University, he went to study in the United States and is now Chinese-American. Most of the Chinese engineers in the high-tech field of the United States are from Taiwan, such as Zhang Zhongmou, the president of Oriental Semiconductor.

"Mr. Chen, you are welcome to choose to join us. On behalf of all the colleagues of the Oriental Research Institute, I welcome you. I believe that in a few years, your choice will burst into a dazzling light!" Li Xuan said with a smile.

Chen Shiqing used to be the CTO of Cray Company. Now the fastest caryx-mp supercomputer in the world was designed by him~www.wuxiaspot.com~ Ordinary people may be unfamiliar with Cray Company. The company was the undisputed leader of the supercomputer industry in the 1970s and 1980s.

Although after the 1990s, IBM, Intel, and Silicon Valley Graphics have rapidly risen in the field of supercomputers, but it is still the most famous supercomputer manufacturer in the United States. Before Li Xuan crossed, the "Titan" supercomputer built by Cray for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy was surpassed by China's newly developed "Tianhe-2" in computing speed, ranking second in the world. However, the comprehensive efficiency of "Titan" is stronger than that of "Tianhe-2", which shows the strong technical strength of Cray Company.

Although Chen Shiqing is the chief technology officer of Cray Company, the real boss of Cray Company is the founder of the company, Mr. Old Cray, and Chen Shiqing is just a wage earner. Even if the old Clay retires, he may not be able to take over the Cray Company smoothly. Although the United States claims to be a beacon of democracy, the ethnic ceiling in large companies is everywhere. Unless they are founders, very few Chinese people can become a company.

Li Xuan's conditions for poaching the other party, in addition to making Chen Shiqing the full-fledged person in charge of the "Pearl of the Orient" project, promises that after the supercomputer is successfully developed, an independent subsidiary will be established for commercial development. And Chen Shiqing will hold 30% of the shares in the new company, changing from working for others to being his own boss. (To be continued..)

...