A genius? I just love studying.

Chapter 274 The Mysterious Netherworld Plan, The Light of Taihu Lake

"Mr. Ren, it's been a long time."

In the office of Fefferman, the head of the mathematics department at Princeton, Chen Hui dialed the phone number of the CEO of Youwei Group.

"Professor Chen?"

Ren Woxing was also quite surprised. Of course, he knew Chen Hui's current situation, and could even say he was very familiar with it, since his daughter had experienced almost the same thing back then.

He didn't know why Chen Hui was calling him in this situation. Did he want to ask him for advice on escaping from danger?

"If I were to have Youwei Group build a supercomputer for me in Princeton, how much budget would it require?"

Chen Hui got straight to the point.

A year ago, the CloudMatrix 384 developed by Youwei Group had already reached the international leading level. In the past year or so, after absorbing ASML's technology and being able to mass-produce 3nm chips, the Ascend chip is now far ahead in terms of both performance and cost.

When there is no way to seek help from the official authorities, having Youwei Group build the supercomputing cluster is indeed a very good choice.

"The budget must be calculated based on computing power."

Ren Woxing was unaware of what had happened, but since business was coming his way, he didn't refuse.

"The stronger the computing power, the better."

Chen Hui answered without hesitation, "I can provide $5 million in funding."

Meteorological data requires the collection of a large amount of information, such as humidity, temperature, and altitude. This data is collected in sets every few kilometers, once per second. The amount of data that the entire country of China can generate in a day is no exaggeration. To process so much data, a supercomputer with extremely high performance is naturally required.

"5 million US dollars?"

Even Ren Woxing, who had seen a lot of money, was secretly astonished; Chen Hui's spending was truly extravagant.

有为的CloudMatrix 384单套售价是800万美元，包含384颗昇腾910C芯片和192颗鲲鹏CPU，单集群算力达到300 PFlops，即每秒一千万亿次浮点运算。

"I need to contact the relevant technical personnel for the specific details."

Ren Woxing did not give a direct answer.

"Then I'll have to trouble you, Mr. Ren."

After hanging up the phone, Fefferman asked excitedly, "Are you really going to build a $5 million supercomputing cluster in Princeton?"

"Of course!"

"However, this cluster can only be made available to others when I am not using it."

"No problem at all."

Fefferman said firmly, "You don't need to worry about the land issue. I will clear out a building's worth of land for you as soon as possible."

"All future maintenance costs will be borne by Princeton!"

Without any prior discussion at a meeting, Fefferman directly assured Chen Hui with a promise.

Once a supercomputing cluster is running, electricity costs and the repair and replacement of damaged parts can also be a significant expense.

However, compared to the $5 million Chen Hui contributed, it is indeed a small amount of money. Although Chen Hui is using the supercomputer for the time being, the supercomputer is too large to be moved easily. In other words, since the supercomputing cluster is located in Princeton, it is Princeton's asset.

$5 million would be enough to become a Princeton shareholder.

Fefferman believed that the shareholders would not refuse to cover the maintenance costs of this supercomputing cluster.

"Thank you."

Chen Hui also breathed a sigh of relief. After spending $5 million, he really didn't have much money left. Without Fefferman's promise, he would have had to sell the patent license to Nvidia to get a few hundred million dollars in cash.

……

“We forgot that he also has $5 million in cash and doesn’t need our sponsorship at all.”

In the conference room at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in Washington, Wilson and several senators exchanged glances. Chen Hui's phone had been constantly monitored by them. Nick had reported this major event to his superiors immediately.

Those who can become members of parliament are either elite politicians or have considerable assets and can be called capitalists, but even for them, it is not so easy to come up with $5 million in cash all at once.

"That's a good thing too."

"Anyway, once the goods are on our territory, they'll be ours sooner or later."

Wilson chuckled. Now everything's fine, everyone's happy.

"If you ask me, why don't we wait until they've set it up, then confiscate the supercomputing cluster on the grounds of threatening national security?"

One congressman said ominously, "After confiscating $5 million in assets, he can use many reasons to take a big bite out of this lucrative piece of meat and make a fortune."

"Are you out of your mind?"

Wilson frowned slightly. "To do something like this for a mere $5 million, damaging our international reputation, how can America cooperate with other countries in the future?"

Nick, standing nearby, wholeheartedly agreed. Since Chen Hui's incident, thousands of scholars have fled America, and tens of thousands have refused to come to America to participate in conferences and exchanges.

America's international reputation is already in a mess, and Chen Hui himself is under the spotlight and being watched by many people. If he does something like this again, the country's reputation will probably collapse completely.

"What can you do with the supercomputer?"

"What, you guys can develop an accurate weather forecasting model?"

Wilson glanced around the conference room.

He was really a little angry.

The other members of parliament in the meeting room lowered their heads and said nothing.

Although everyone is a member of parliament, Wilson is the party whip, and the Wilson family is an old American family. If you offend him, even if you are a member of parliament, you might be shot in the back and killed one day, and then ruled as a suicide.

There are also differences among the members of parliament.

"Supercomputers should only be useful in the hands of top scientists; their ownership is not up for discussion for now."

Wilson stormed out of the conference room, his words implying that he already considered the supercomputing cluster to be their asset.

……

Beijing, Siheyuan.

"How is Project Xuanming progressing?"

Old Zhao examined the progress chart on the tablet and asked in a deep voice.

Xuanming was originally an ancient water god, also known as the Rain Master in ancient times. This project naturally involves deploying sensors within China. The name reflects everyone's high expectations for the project, hoping to complete the construction of an accurate prediction model and truly control wind, rain, thunder, and lightning.

“The task has a high priority. We have completed 30% of the deployment, but it will be difficult to deploy in many areas later. The inventory of sensors is almost depleted, and the production capacity will also need time to be adjusted. I am afraid the progress will be much slower. It is expected to take at least three more months.” The middle-aged assistant next to him replied.

"Ah."

Mr. Zhao nodded.

This speed is already quite good. Only a week has passed since their meeting. Such efficiency is rare in any company, but if he is in charge, it is naturally a different story.

"Three months?"

Old Zhao looked up, his brows furrowing slightly. "Can Youwei Group complete the construction of the supercomputing cluster within three months?"

"That might be difficult."

Without checking the information, the assistant replied directly, "At the beginning of the year, they built a cluster of 14 chips in Guizhou, which took four months. Professor Chen's needs are even higher, and it will probably take at least six months to a year to complete."

"Is that so?"

Old Zhao muttered to himself, his eyes full of thought. According to this timeline, Chen Hui could not start research immediately after obtaining the data, but would have to wait about half a year.

Six months for a brilliant mathematician is extremely valuable!

After a long pause, he suddenly looked at his assistant and said, "Do you think it would be possible to build the Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer in three months if we moved it to Princeton?"

"The Light of Taihu Lake?"

The assistant stared wide-eyed, frozen in place like a statue, not even realizing the document in his hand had fallen to the ground.

That's the light of Taihu Lake!

If they actually send the Taihu Light satellite there and people find out, netizens will probably condemn them as traitors.

"I know Professor Chen is a genius, and you have always valued him highly, but isn't this a bit too much of an overemphasis?"

"It's only six months, I'm sure Professor Chen can wait that long."

The assistant quickly tried to dissuade him, saying that he knew Zhao Lao's personality and was genuinely afraid that the other party would actually carry out this matter.

Old Zhao turned to his assistant and said, "We might not be able to wait six months!"

"Every extra day Professor Chen stays in America increases the danger."

"Don't even mention saving half a year, even if it's just three months, I'm willing to pay a certain price."

"Furthermore, Professor Chen spent $5 million. Now that TaihuLight is gone, we can build a new supercomputing cluster. With the experience gained from TaihuLight, TaihuLight 2 will surely give everyone a pleasant surprise."

"It just so happens that Professor Chen will be returning to China at that time. He definitely won't be able to bring the supercomputer back with him. Rather than letting them get a supercomputing cluster with the latest architecture, it's better to just give them the TaihuLight supercomputer from ten years ago. It won't hurt us."

The assistant remained silent. Just as Professor Zhao had said, the semiconductor industry had made rapid progress in the past year or so, with both hardware and software undergoing several iterations. In fact, all of this was largely due to Professor Chen.

The Taihu Light of ten years ago is indeed almost outdated, but it is still the Taihu Light, how can we not feel heartbroken?

But for some reason, he felt that what Old Zhao said made a lot of sense.

"But I still don't understand, what does this have to do with Professor Chen coming back?"

Old Zhao shook his head. "I don't know either."

"?"

"But we must believe in Professor Chen's desire to return. We must believe that everything he is doing now is in preparation for his return. So we don't need to think too much. We just need to do our best to help him accomplish what he wants to do."

Old Zhao said it as a matter of course.

The assistant felt a slight electric current coursing through his scalp—what incredible trust!
But looking back on Professor Chen's experience, he believes that Professor Chen deserves such trust!
"Go ahead and gather everyone for a meeting to discuss this matter."

……

After receiving my pre-ordered coffee from the coffee machine, I walked down the corridor into the Finn Building and went up to the second floor.

A large crowd had gathered in front of the central blackboard, where someone had started a challenge with colorful chalk writing on it, indicating that many people were participating.

Chen Hui glanced at it from afar; it was about the stability of complex systems. They were discussing whether a particular saddle point could become a new stability criterion based on non-cooperative game theory.

Without in-depth research, Chen Hui still has many topics to study. He usually doesn't spend much time on problems that aren't immediately obvious.

Of course, perhaps one day while studying the Riemann Hypothesis, a flash of inspiration will come to solve this problem, but at least not now.

At Princeton, professors don't usually teach all their classes themselves; they can have their students or hire teaching assistants to teach. Many professors probably won't even teach two classes a semester.

But Chen Hui still insisted on coming to class every time. He quite enjoyed discussing with these young geniuses. Because they had many things they didn't understand, they weren't bound by existing frameworks. Sometimes, some imaginative questions would bring Chen Hui a lot of inspiration.

Woohoo.

Before entering the classroom, Chen Hui answered a phone call from Ren Woxing.

"A quadrillion times per second, three months?"

Listening to the voice on the microphone, Chen Hui wondered if he was hallucinating.

$500 million could build a supercomputing cluster with a computing power of 100 quadrillion calculations per second, which could be explained by the fact that Youwei Group is generous and uses solid materials. However, the fact that it only took three months made him suspect that the other party was a fraud group.

A supercomputing cluster with a computing power of one quadrillion calculations per second can be built in three months. Can you fool him if he doesn't understand?

After hanging up the phone, Chen Hui was hesitating about whether to replace Youwei Group and contact foreign manufacturers when his teacher Yuan Xinyi called, telling him that the complete collection of meteorological data in China would be completed in three months at the latest.

Data from some areas can now be gradually transmitted over.

"Three months?"

Before entering the classroom, Chen Hui pondered the time, and suddenly realized something.

The classroom was already full of students. After all, it was a Phil Medal winner teaching the class, and Chen Hui's lively and interesting teaching style made his classes very popular in the Princeton Mathematics Department.

Elena, Michael, and Deng Leyan were also there. Even if they didn't study this field, it would be good for them to learn about analytic number theory, since it was their teacher's class.

The three of them sat by the window, outside which was a row of ginkgo trees. Golden ginkgo leaves covered the ground outside the window, and the air was filled with a crisp scent. Before they knew it, it was already autumn.

"Therefore, the Montgomery conjecture suggests that, at sufficiently high scales, the distribution of the nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function on the critical line Re(s) = 1/2 has statistical properties that are remarkably consistent with the spacing distribution of the eigenvalues ​​of a large random Hermitian matrix!"
This is a breathtaking bridge between number theory and physics, pure mathematics and probability…

Chen Hui stood at the front of the class, the blackboard behind him filled with complex formulas: the error term of the prime number theorem, the Riemann zeta function in the critical band 0.

Chen Hui picked up the chalk, preparing to draw a classic zero-point spacing distribution comparison chart and a sketch of the GUE correlation function.

The classroom was silent as the students tried to digest this profound and beautiful fact, but some frowned slightly, attempting to establish an intuitive connection between the abstract formula and the concrete "randomness".

Just then, an autumn breeze blew a few golden ginkgo leaves onto the classroom's huge Gothic window frame, making a soft rustling sound.

(End of this chapter)