Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 664 Zhiyun Engineers Are Very Busy

On April 26, Yihai Technology Group officially announced that its virtual game "Fanren" has been officially connected to the superconducting quantum computing system, providing sufficient artificial intelligence computing power to better serve players in the game.

Yihai Technology announced that after connecting to the superconducting quantum computing system, the NPCs in the game will achieve full intelligence and will constantly change. That is, existing NPCs will grow, get injured or even die, while new NPCs will constantly appear. The NPCs in the game will no longer be fixed icons, but will evolve into real life in the game world.

At the same time, the monster system has also been significantly upgraded to make it more realistic... Of course, the monsters cannot be made to be as intelligent as humans, otherwise players would not be able to defeat them... It's just that some of the monsters' behaviors appear to be more logical, making the battles more realistic and challenging for players.

Gamers are focused on the changes in the game's artificial intelligence, while tech bloggers and enthusiasts outside the game are concerned with how much AI computing power Yihai Technology provided for this flagship virtual game to achieve this level of performance.

After collecting and analyzing information, tech bloggers have discovered that the superconducting quantum computer array deployed by Yihai Technology Group specifically for the Fanren Virtual Game has a scale of at least twenty computing units... Each computing unit consists of a superconducting quantum computer paired with one hundred GTL servers, the kind that costs more than 500 million yuan.

The hardware cost of just the computing units for this batch of superconducting quantum computers will exceed 10 billion yuan. With other hardware and construction costs added, the total investment cost will be even higher.

In other words, Yihai Technology Group invested over 10 billion yuan to build a superconducting quantum computing center to provide more advanced artificial intelligence computing power support for the virtual game "Fanren".

This demonstrates the high level of technology involved in the virtual game "Ordinary People" and the importance that Yihai Technology Group attaches to it!
Yihai Technology Group is the first company, apart from Zhiyun Group itself and a secret special organization, to operate superconducting quantum computers on a large scale in the civilian commercial field.

It's not that there aren't other superconducting quantum computers; in fact, many companies have purchased them. However, the initial application scale is relatively small, with only one or two computing units... Although they are used, the actual computing scale is not large, and the impact is not significant.

Meanwhile, most of the superconducting quantum computing centers of top companies are still in the construction or technical preparation stage... because the superconducting quantum computing centers they are building are very large in scale, the delivery of equipment takes time, the construction time is even longer, and there are also many technical problems that need to be solved one by one.

A typical example is Google's superconducting quantum computing center. They obtained their first Zhiyun quantum computing unit in mid-January and even conducted a technical demonstration to symbolically run a big data model... But that was just a demonstration, for the media and investors, to boost the stock price.

In fact, their first large-scale quantum computing center is still under construction... Of course, this is also related to their ambitious construction goals. This computing center will use one hundred quantum computing units.

However, so far, Zhiyun Group has only delivered more than twenty computing units to Google... This is not because Zhiyun Group is deliberately withholding deliveries from Google, but because Zhiyun Group's production capacity of the YCL-52 superconducting quantum computer is currently limited.

These limited production capacities are needed to meet the needs of global customers... a large number of domestic companies, a large number of European companies, a large number of American companies... more than 300 companies have ordered Zhiyun quantum computing systems from Zhiyun Group.

As for delivery, on the one hand, orders are queued according to the order time, and on the other hand, they are delivered in turn. Although super customers like Google have some priority and can get more goods faster, it does not mean that Zhiyun Group will give them all of its initial production capacity.

Assuming that 100 YCL-52 superconducting quantum computers are shipped in a month, domestic companies will receive about 40 units, American companies about 30 units, European companies about 15 units, Japanese and Korean companies about 10 units, and the remaining 5 superconducting quantum computers will be distributed to scattered companies in India, ASEAN, South America, and other regions.

It is important to mention that, apart from a very few high-tech companies, the customers who purchased these superconducting quantum computers do not have the capability or ambition to independently develop the underlying computing power for artificial intelligence.

They basically use various AI algorithms that are freely available from Zhiyun Group, so their AI technology is weak, or even lacks this foundation, but that doesn't prevent them from purchasing superconducting quantum computers and then deploying big data models like GTAI on them!
Just because they can't build computers or develop operating systems doesn't mean they can't even use computer applications, much less that they can't use a computer at all...

The large number of customers led to a severe shortage of production capacity for early-stage superconducting quantum computers and even GTL servers.

Leaving aside the YCL-52 superconducting quantum computer, its annual production capacity is only a few thousand units, and the quantity is so small... The core of the GTL server is the APO6000 graphics card, and the production capacity of this top-of-the-line graphics card is also limited, with a very tight supply.

In the face of severe supply shortages, it's impossible to supply only domestic or American customers in the early stages... No amount of money can justify it. Zhuyun Group must protect the rights and interests of its global customers as fairly as possible!
Of course... sister companies like Yihai Technology Group receive some special treatment, which is why Yihai Technology Group was able to deploy and apply the superconducting quantum computing center the fastest, while other companies had to lag behind a little.

The treatment at Google is already quite good; they have already received more than twenty YCL-52 superconducting quantum computers and matching GTL servers.

However, they still need time for assembly and debugging, and they also need to solve some technical problems related to the large-scale application of superconducting quantum computing centers...

Although Zhiyun Group sells the YCL-52 superconducting quantum computer and its supporting GTL server, it even delivers a complete computing unit directly to you... pre-configured and ready to go.

They also charge for providing technical support services for large computing centers.

In layman's terms, as long as the customer pays, Zhiyun Group can provide you with a package deal to build a super-large quantum computing center with hundreds of computing power units, ready to be used right away.

However... this will still take time.

In addition, there is another key factor that outsiders may easily overlook: the engineers providing technical support for the computing center at Zhiyun Group are not just a handful of cabbages; their numbers are limited and cannot simultaneously meet the massive demands of two to three hundred customers worldwide. When these customers purchase superconducting quantum computers for installation and debugging, they all require engineers dispatched by Zhiyun Group to perform the installation and debugging.

After all, this isn't a personal computer that anyone with a little computer knowledge can assemble themselves by buying some spare parts... It costs over 500 million, and it's even more expensive overseas. It's a superconducting quantum computer with hundreds of GTL servers, plus a whole host of auxiliary systems for heat dissipation, data exchange, power supply, and so on.

This thing is very complicated!
The customer can't even install it on their own.

Then, the Zhiyun Group's quantum computer project did not have enough technical support engineers.

Although Zhiyun Group started emergency training for technical support engineers several months in advance, the short time frame and high demand have resulted in a shortage of manpower.

Every client is urging us every day, there's nothing we can do... We can only selectively prioritize meeting the needs of some strategic clients. Even so, it still means a technical support team is running around to several companies at the same time... We have too few people and too many projects, we're simply too busy.

The installation and debugging of the quantum computing center on Google's side were done in this way, in rotation.

The technical support engineers and technicians dispatched by Zhiyun Group to the United States were all busy at Google for ten days to half a month. After finishing a period of work, and before the new equipment arrived, a few people were left behind to do odd jobs, while the other technical backbones were transferred to Microsoft for ten days to half a month... and then a few days later they flew to Tesla for a period of time.

With this kind of relocation, the progress naturally can't be fast. This further delays the deployment time of these customers' quantum computers... Zhiyun Group would rather everyone be slower than favor any one customer!
We're all making money, so there's no need to favor one over the other... Of course, our sister company, Yihai Technology Group, is an exception!

Well, other clients can tolerate you favoring Yihai Technology Group, but if you favor other companies, those clients will have a lot of complaints... Although they can't do anything about it, there's no need to make client relationships so strained.

These factors have led to the fact that Google's superconducting computing center, despite being under construction for three months, has still not been put into practical application... They can only set up one or two computing units for preliminary testing.

However, the computing power of one or two computing units is not very meaningful for a company like Google, except for conducting tests... What they need is a large superconducting quantum computer array, so that it can be used to train their next generation of artificial intelligence or to run free algorithms from companies like GTAI to support commercial operations.

Of course, this timeline is not far off!
If all goes well, Google's first large-scale quantum computing center is expected to complete all equipment installation and debugging work by June... In order to speed up the deployment, Google directly used an old data center, cleared out the old equipment, and made room to deploy the superconducting quantum computer.

It's not a completely new construction project. If it were,... well, they probably wouldn't have gotten all the necessary permits yet, and the area would still be barren mountains and forests that hadn't been leveled.

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Currently, apart from Zhiyun Group itself, the only other superconducting quantum computing center that has been deployed on a large scale for civilian commercial use is Yihai Technology Group's... and it's not being used to train any artificial intelligence, but rather directly for virtual games.

This demonstrates the immense wealth of Yihai Technology Group... They simply set up a game, yet they directly deployed a quantum computing center with an investment of over 10 billion yuan.

This also made people realize once again the importance of virtual games and their broad market prospects... At least the importance that Yihai Technology has shown to virtual games is enough to illustrate this point.

And this is indeed the case. The current internet industry is developing towards the virtual internet... It can't be called a shift, as the mobile internet is still irreplaceable, but the virtual internet also has enormous application and market value.

A single virtual game has supported a global market worth hundreds of billions of yuan.

Furthermore, relying on the virtual internet... to be precise, the emerging virtual advertising and virtual e-commerce models in the 'Smart Cloud Virtual World' are also developing rapidly.

Most importantly, current virtual reality devices are still quite bulky and require a treadmill for support, while lightweight VR virtual reality devices have many drawbacks: they can only be viewed, not moved!
However, Zhiyun Group has never concealed its plans and ambitions to further develop virtual devices.

They have even publicly stated on multiple occasions that the company has invested heavily in the research and development of next-generation virtual equipment...

For Zhiyun Group to talk about huge investments, they must be investments of tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of US dollars... If it's just a few billion US dollars of R&D projects, Zhiyun Group won't bother to publicize it... There are just too many to list.

With such a large company as Zhiyun Group investing heavily in research and development in the field of next-generation virtual devices, people naturally believe that virtual devices will undergo significant technological upgrades in the future, and there may even be immersive virtual experiences.

You don't have to believe in yourself, but you have to believe in the top elites at Zhiyun Group. They wouldn't be foolish enough to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in research and development on so-called 'next-generation virtual devices' without any reason. There must be some credibility to this, and they may have achieved breakthroughs in theoretical technology, or even key technologies.

In layman's terms, given the actions of Zhiyun Group, it's entirely possible that they could actually create a 'next-generation virtual device' in the future.

Although we don't yet know what the 'next generation of virtual devices' will look like, it represents the enormous potential of the virtual content industry... a market even larger than it is now!

This is why a large number of internet companies are following in the footsteps of Zhiyun Group and making heavy bets in the virtual content industry.

Beyond virtual games, many internet companies are actively exploring more types of virtual content... For example, a leading adult film website in North America launched virtual adult film content as soon as Zhiyun Group released its virtual devices.

These virtual adult films haven't generated much buzz in China... After all, they're illegal, and people in China using domestic virtual devices can't access these overseas resources... Zhiyun Group's virtual devices employ a zoned management model for content operation.

Virtual content apps are not something you can just download anywhere, and they don't have browsers or anything like that. The way you get their content is similar to how you get content on a mobile phone; you need to download a dedicated content app from the system's app store.

Virtual content apps listed in each district must comply with the laws and regulations of that region.

Therefore, netizens in China will never be able to enjoy the kind of shocking scene of standing on the sidelines and watching adult film actors go head-to-head with their performances!
However, virtual reality games in some overseas countries are quite successful, so this virtual adult film has generated a significant response and its market size is growing rapidly.

More virtual content formats are gradually emerging, such as virtual face-to-face social interaction, watching movies and short videos in virtual spaces, and so on.

The virtual world, which can simulate the real world to some extent but is essentially an illusion, is showing a trend of becoming people's 'second world'.

However, the current virtual device technology is not very advanced, and the experience is just so-so.

But... this is now, and who knows what the future holds.

After all, this is how Zhiyun Group has always been; they might just pull out all the stops in a few years and create a virtual reality headset like those in science fiction novels!

Many netizens are quite looking forward to this... but things like superconducting quantum computers and space travel aren't really that important to them.

However, if there were a true virtual reality headset, a legendary virtual world, then they would be drooling... Not to mention selling everything they own to buy one, they would treat virtual reality devices like cars, considering them a necessity and a large expense, and would likely spend three to five years on installments to get one...

Who wouldn't want to experience a truly virtual world?
I want it too!

(End of this chapter)