Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 674 Xu Shenxue Bragging

On July 16, Xu Shenxue attended a high-tech summit in Beijing.

At the summit, Xu Shenxue delivered a roughly 20-minute speech in front of numerous media reporters, on the topic of "Artificial Intelligence Empowering Modern Technological Life".

The speech focused on three main application scenarios: autonomous vehicles, smart living, and smart home robots, elaborating on the impact and effective promotion of artificial intelligence technology on people's modern technological lives.

Of course, this was also a product promotion speech... promoting their own smart robot products and self-driving vehicles.

In this speech, the speaker also proposed using smartphones as the core to effectively connect various AI-powered home products, and even robots and autonomous vehicles, forming a highly efficient AI network tailored to each individual, thereby assisting in handling various user needs.

This is the concept of 'personal intelligent network' that Xu Shenxue proposed in his speech.

A personal AI network, while at first glance seemingly just connecting numerous personal devices, is actually a network that coordinates AI computing resources...

The simplest application example is if you want to use AI software on your phone to generate a strange long video locally. The computing power on the phone is definitely not enough. The previous solution was to use the cloud computing power of the software vendor... but cloud computing power is not free.

This system allows you to utilize the computing power of a home computer, virtual devices, and intelligent robots to complete these tasks.

Simply put, it's about utilizing the idle computing power of high-performance devices such as smart home hosts, smart robots, virtual devices, and autonomous vehicles that users have at home.

Of course, more importantly, it is to address the limitation that mobile phones and laptops, due to their limited size and power supply, cannot accommodate high-power computing chips, thus hindering the implementation of many local artificial intelligence services...

Zhiyun Group has been trying to create a truly meaningful artificial intelligence assistant, and the best platform for such an AI assistant is the smartphone that everyone carries with them.

However, smartphones are too small and their local computing power cannot support this.

This is why the concept of 'personal intelligence network' has emerged.

The concept of 'AI assistant', which wasn't mentioned in the speech, is actually the main content of this fall's flagship launch event... At that time, Zhiyun Group will release this 'AI assistant' that will be featured on the S22 series phones.

This AI assistant is not as simple as the generative AI like Yun AI in the past, but a complete AI assistant that can mobilize other devices to do many things and can provide timely and professional advice on many things such as learning, work and even fitness.

The personal intelligent network mentioned in today's speech is just a preview of the upcoming 'artificial intelligence assistant'... to generate interest and attention, and then the artificial intelligence assistant will be launched naturally at the press conference in August.

------

Xu Shenxue's speech focused heavily on how artificial intelligence can effectively improve people's quality of life, consistently advocating for AI technology.

After all, many of Xu Shenxue's companies have benefited greatly from the field of artificial intelligence.

Zhiyun Group sells robots, virtual equipment, and computing power equipment through artificial intelligence technology.

Hailan Automotive Group sells smart electric vehicles using artificial intelligence technology and recently released its own smart robot.

Nanmen Aerospace Group is using artificial intelligence technology to build large-scale space stations, interplanetary spacecraft between Earth and the Moon, and lunar bases.

Even assembly, design, and marketing companies like Vcool Electronics Group use the L3 intelligent driving technology of the EYEQ system to sell Bluegogo cars.

Using artificial intelligence technology, Xu Shenxue has created several entirely new and extremely large-scale industries, all of which he is currently developing himself...

Therefore, Xu Shenxue has always been very fond of advocating artificial intelligence technology in public!

Xu Shenxue's speech at the summit quickly spread across the internet... Although Xu Shenxue's speech was rather general, and much of the content was rather unrealistic and even boastful.

For example, during a speech, a demonstration video is shown to let people enjoy the future life of artificial intelligence technology... To be honest, it's a bit exaggerated. The demonstration video shows a complete scene of a person going to work, leaving get off work, and returning home.

These scenes depict a lot of futuristic technology... and they all look fake.

Especially the one where people work in a high-rise building, and after get off work they don't even need to go downstairs, they can just walk to a special balcony and get on a 'flying car' from there. If this flying car were a multi-rotor or a helicopter, that would be fine, but it doesn't even have those features, it's like an anti-gravity flying car.

The flying car soared over the city and then stopped outside a suburban villa. After getting out of the flying car, the protagonist entered the house... and then a whole host of scenes of daily life filled with various artificial intelligence products followed.

Then, before going to bed, I put on a virtual reality headset. While sleeping and resting, my subconscious mind could still play games in the virtual world... After playing games all night, I was still full of energy when I woke up the next day!

This promotional video is too sci-fi... so many people just watch it and that's it.

However, many people, even professionals, especially those in the investment and high-tech fields, have repeatedly studied Xu Shenxue's speech and this promotional video!
They were trying to glean insights from this speech and promotional video about the next strategic development direction and technological breakthroughs of Xu Shenxue's companies, especially the Zhiyun Group.

Over the years, Xu Shenxue has rarely given public speeches, and each speech at the time seemed to be mostly boasting... But looking back today, many years later, it turns out that Xu Shenxue wasn't just boasting; he actually produced many of the products he described in his speeches.

The most typical example is the intelligent robot!
Before he could even create an intelligent robot, Xu Shenxue gave many public speeches, describing the application scenarios of intelligent robots... At the time, almost everyone thought Xu Shenxue was just bragging, but later he actually created an intelligent robot.

Currently, the global annual sales of intelligent robots are in the millions, and they have already entered ordinary middle- and high-income families.

Xu Shenxue once boasted about manned multi-rotor drones, and later he also developed the X14 drone. Although it has not yet been widely used in the civilian market due to the laws and regulations of various countries and its practicality, the military forces of many countries really like this product and have purchased it to use as a 'frontline ultra-low-altitude light transport aircraft'... Even the US military is using it.

Its characteristics of ultra-low altitude, high-speed flight in the early stages, no need for a pilot, and relatively low price (around one million US dollars per unit) give the X14 drone a certain special value in the field of military applications.

It's quite useful for delivering supplies to the front-line trenches, evacuating the wounded, and replenishing small groups of personnel... In fact, most countries use this as a 'low-altitude flying vehicle' rather than a traditional helicopter.

Xu Shenxue once boasted that he would build a base on the moon, and now he's actually doing it... Although everyone thinks that Xu Shenxue's idea of ​​building a lunar base is a waste of money and has little practical significance, the reality is that Nanmen Aerospace's lunar base is under continuous construction, growing larger and more complete every day.

Xu Shenxue once boasted about quantum computers... Seven or eight years ago, he said that quantum computers would be put into use in the next ten years, and everyone thought he was just bragging.

However, last winter, Zhiyun Group actually released the superconducting quantum computer YCL-52, which, when paired with GTL servers, can already be used for the training and operation of artificial intelligence, shocking the world and creating and leading a new era of quantum computing power... incidentally strangling the development of global artificial intelligence.

Of course, many of the boasts Xu Shenxue made back then still seem like he was just bragging today... such as colonizing and developing the solar system, cheap civilian space travel, anti-gravity flying cars, the kind of virtual helmets depicted in science fiction novels, controlled nuclear fusion, growing food in the desert, and increasing human lifespan to 150 years old.

How can these things be achieved? Current technology can't do it... it's just unrealistic!

Xu Shenxue is known worldwide for his boasting... but many of his boasts have come true, which is also known worldwide.

Therefore, when Xu Shenxue was bragging again in his speech, a lot of people naturally went to study it.

They knew that most of what Xu Shenxue said was probably just bragging, but some of it was actually possible to do, and might even be released soon.

Xu Shenxue is such a big boss, he can't possibly do something meaningless in public just to brag and make everyone happy.

Therefore, many people went to study Xu Shenxue's speech and promotional video... especially the promotional video, which was carefully analyzed by a large number of professionals.

Many self-media bloggers analyze this promotional video frame by frame, then extract parts to make various interpretations or exaggerations in order to gain traffic.

The anti-gravity flying car, in particular, has excited many self-media bloggers, who have made various speculations and reports...

What they didn't know was that this was just Xu Shenxue bragging, and that anti-gravity was not currently a realistic concept.

Superconducting magnetic levitation is possible, but it's a different concept from antigravity. Although Zhiyun Group is also conducting cutting-edge research on antigravity, they haven't even found a feasible theory yet, so who knows when they'll be able to make it.

The so-called anti-gravity flying car in the promotional video was originally an extreme evolution of the X14 drone. However, multi-rotor drones didn't look good in the promotional video, so they simply made it look like it had no propellers... This was purely due to the aesthetic preferences of the promotional video's creators, and not because Xu Shenxue was deliberately exaggerating.

After the speech, there was much discussion outside, while Xu Shenxue himself stayed in Beijing for a few more days, held two symposiums, and then quietly left Beijing by private jet to begin a new round of inspection tours.

The symposium held in Beijing this time mainly focused on controlled nuclear fusion and the related lunar helium-3 mining project.

Controlled nuclear fusion technology and the lunar helium-3 mining project involve the issue of large-scale supply of cheap energy in the future. Once developed, they will greatly promote the development of the entire economic system.

Cheap, plentiful, readily available, and safe new energy sources... everyone wants them.

Compared to lower electricity prices, the most important thing is that controlled nuclear fusion can provide a large amount of power in a short period of time... which is also what Xu Shenxue values ​​most.

Many of the computing centers under his control are super power hogs, and the domestic infrastructure capacity for new power generation is no longer keeping up with the rapidly increasing domestic electricity demand led by Zhuyun Group.

Due to power shortages, some domestic companies have even deployed their computing centers overseas... There's no other way; although China has abundant electricity, its demand is also high, and there's also the competition for electricity from companies like Zhiyun Group. Many less powerful companies can buy GT servers, but they can't secure power for their data centers... So, they have no choice but to build their computing centers in areas with cheaper electricity.

Not to mention them, even Zhuyun Group itself has deployed a large number of data centers and computing centers of various kinds overseas to support its global business, also in order to save power.

To support its virtual content business, Zhuyun Group has not only deployed a large number of data centers and computing power centers in China, but has also built six dedicated data centers and computing power centers for virtual content in various locations around the world to provide virtual content services to users worldwide.

As more and more virtual devices are sold and the number of virtual users increases, the virtual content service data centers and computing power centers under the Zhiyun Group continue to expand...

Electricity has become a major obstacle restricting the further development of Zhiyun Group...

However, there is no way to solve this in the short term... Electricity is not like cabbage; it's not something you can just ask for. Even if you offer high electricity prices to Zhiyun Group, it won't work. The infrastructure construction capacity for new power facilities is limited, and the construction cycle is too long.

Currently, apart from controlled nuclear fusion technology, there are no good ways to alleviate the power shortage caused by the rapid development of artificial intelligence... With Xu Shenxue's scientific research system driving the development of artificial intelligence technology, the level of development is very high, and the power consumption is also very large.

The electricity used for artificial intelligence in China has reached more than one trillion watt-hours every year, accounting for more than ten percent of the country's total power generation... Even so, a large number of companies, especially Zhiyun Group, are constantly complaining that it is not enough!
So, Xu Shenxue is waiting for controlled nuclear fusion!

Once controlled nuclear fusion is successfully applied on a large scale for commercial use, it will be impossible and unimportant for electricity to be free. What is important is that it can provide a large amount of electricity in a short period of time!

Of course, if the electricity price for domestic residential and industrial production is reduced further, it won't be a big problem... it's just that the price reduction will be very limited.

The enormous research and development costs of controlled nuclear fusion, the investment costs of future nuclear fusion power plants, and the massive investment costs of lunar helium-3 mining projects will all be factored into the cost of nuclear fusion power sources in the future; they won't be available for free.

Besides, even if nuclear fusion power generation is free, power transmission still costs money... The construction and operation of power transmission networks are also quite expensive.

So don't expect free electricity, or even very cheap electricity!

------

Furthermore, controlled nuclear fusion has an unexpected benefit: if this controlled nuclear fusion technology and the lunar helium-3 project succeed, a large number of coal-fired power plants in China can become history, because this high-energy-consuming and polluting energy source will no longer be needed... On the one hand, it can improve the environment, and on the other hand, and more importantly, it can raise the banner of environmental protection, forcing other countries to also abandon coal-fired power...

The environmental protection banner is very useful for restricting the industrial development of underdeveloped countries... Not to mention anything else, just by cutting off their thermal power, the industrial development of a large number of developing countries will stagnate, and they will become dumping grounds for industrial consumer goods!
Without electricity, what kind of industry can we do!
From multiple perspectives, controlled nuclear fusion has very high strategic value and is related to people's livelihood and economic development.

Therefore, this project has a very high priority, attracting Xu Shenxue's attention and prompting many companies to work hard for it!
It's not just Xinghai Energy Technology, under Xu Shenxue's leadership, that's working towards controlled nuclear fusion technology; there are also a whole host of supporting enterprises and research institutes.

Xu Shenxue alone has over a hundred companies directly or indirectly involved in this project...

Many subsidiaries of Zhuyun Group and Fairy Mountain Holdings were involved, providing various materials, components, subsystems, software and computing power support for the project, but they themselves were unaware of it.

For example, Zhiyun Cloud Computing, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Group, operates the world's largest AI computing power cluster and has dozens of large AI computing power centers.

One of the latest second-generation YANC computing systems in this subsidiary is used for controlled nuclear fusion projects to train the 'large-scale model for predicting and controlling plasma' required for controlled nuclear fusion technology.

This large model is also very difficult to build, requiring top-of-the-line computing power for training.

Besides its subsidiaries, Xu Shenxue also owns a large number of other supporting enterprises, research institutes, and universities.

This is a key project that requires the entire nation to tackle. It's not just Xu Shenxue's own project. He's just using his prestige and substantial funds to get started, and then he's bringing in a whole bunch of people to work on it together.

With the cooperation of many companies, the controlled nuclear fusion project and the supporting lunar helium-3 mining project are progressing smoothly... Perhaps in a few years, people will be able to use power produced by controlled nuclear fusion.

Although electricity prices are unlikely to be much cheaper in the short term.

Maybe, just a penny or two less?

After leaving Beijing, Xu Shenxue embarked on a new round of inspection tours, with his private plane first flying to a city in the west.

Although other aspects are lacking, the local power resources are relatively abundant. Therefore, starting last year, Zhiyun Cloud Computing Technology, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Group, built a super-large-scale artificial intelligence computing center here.

Xu Shenxue is here to attend the inauguration ceremony!
Today, Zhiyun Group's Zhiyun Cloud Computing operates the world's largest artificial intelligence computing power cluster.

Excluding superconducting quantum computers, if we only consider GPU computing power, its total computing power has exceeded 1,600 EFLOPS, accounting for more than 50% of the global GPU AI computing power. Moreover, the actual deployment cost of GPU computing power in intelligent cloud computing is not as high as the outside world imagines.

Because Zhuyun Group manufactures its own chips and deploys them itself!

Other companies that deploy APO6000 graphics cards spend around 300,000 yuan to purchase one.

The cost of deploying an APO6000 graphics card by Zhiyun Group is only around 30,000 yuan.

Therefore, the deployment cost of Zhiyun Group's computing center is actually very low if calculated solely based on cost... Of course, if financial statistics are conducted, it will not be calculated based on cost, but rather on the external sales price!
This is also why the amount that Zhiyun Group invests in computing infrastructure every year is astronomical... It's definitely expensive if you calculate it according to the market selling price.

However, if these graphics cards are not used by the owners themselves and are instead sold to the public, they would not fetch such a high price!
The computing equipment market is essentially a monopoly for Zhiyun Group. Even with a monopoly, it doesn't mean that you can sell as much equipment as you want for a certain price...

The size of the computing power equipment market depends on how much money customers are willing to invest in the field of artificial intelligence...

The size of the market depends on how much money customers invest.

Currently, excluding Zhuyun Group's own operations, the external market size is around 400 billion US dollars per year.

More than half of the market share is due to the upgrades and replacements of computing equipment by major companies driven by the release of superconducting quantum computers.

This year, major companies have been placing orders for computing equipment with Zhiyun Group, not for graphics cards, but for superconducting quantum computers, which has brought about a huge increase in the market.

After attending the newly built second-generation YANC system in this western city, Xu Shenxue's special plane continued to fly to Hailan Automobile's important production base in the southwest region, namely the Chuancheng production base.

Hailan Automotive Group's production base in Sichuan is a super-large manufacturing base that integrates vehicle manufacturing, solid-state battery production, and the manufacturing of various auto parts. It consists of six branch bases.

This massive production base can provide Hailan Automotive Group with a production capacity of over 800,000 vehicles per year, which will be used to supply the market demand in the greater Southwest region.

Xu Shenxue came to Chuancheng mainly to inspect this production base, and also took the opportunity to inspect the Weiku Industrial production base next door.

Weiku Industry has also established several large-scale production bases in Chuancheng. Although the scale cannot be compared with the super-large-scale bases in Guancheng and Ancheng, the number of employees employed at the peak of the Chuancheng base can reach 70,000 to 80,000.

For Weiku Industry, the Chuancheng base is considered one of the more important second-tier production bases, mainly manufacturing various smart terminal products.

Xu Shenxue conducted his inspections in a cursory manner, visiting factories and convening meetings with the local company's senior management. These meetings did not involve discussing important or specific matters; they were mostly abstract discussions.

After all, the real decisions are never made in these semi-public meetings for the management of local subsidiaries... Xu Shenxue usually discusses and decides on matters in small meetings with the group's senior management.

Meetings aimed at the company's middle and lower-level management and technical staff are used to demonstrate the importance they place on the company...

However, after inspecting the Hailan Automobile production base in the area, Xu Shenxue held a meeting with local middle and lower-level managers and technical backbones during the day, chatting and laughing. But as soon as he returned to the hotel, Xu Shenxue gave several senior managers of Hailan Automobile a thorough dressing-down...

During his daytime inspection, he witnessed workers engaging in dangerous and unsafe practices at a new production base of Hailan Automobile.

You have to understand that Xu Shenxue came all the way here specifically for this inspection, so the local factory must have made preparations several days in advance, covering up any problems as much as possible, and making sure that Xu Shenxue wouldn't see them.

Xu Shenxue inspects so many places every year, but he rarely sees any obvious problems with his own eyes... Everyone isn't stupid. Even if there are problems, they will try their best to cover them up when Xu Shenxue comes.

Therefore, Xu Shenxue basically has no flaws!

But this time, Xu Shenxue saw it, which shows how bad the factory's management is usually... They are too lazy to cover it up, or they can't even cover it up properly!

When one cockroach appears, it means there's a whole swarm of cockroaches in the house!
This situation at the new factory either means that someone doesn't take Xu Shenxue seriously, or that someone doesn't take workplace safety seriously!

So before Xu Shenxue left Chuancheng, he was still smiling as he accepted an interview with reporters during the day, talking about the future plans for the Chuancheng Hailan production base.

However, before boarding the plane, he fired several senior managers in charge of production at Hailan Automotive Group and then ordered Bao Yongyan to reorganize Hailan Automotive's production department.

He will then inspect other production bases of Hailan Automobile Group. If he finds any more of these basic problems, Bao Yongyan can be fired!

(End of this chapter)