Reborn in 2010, the AI ​​in my mind is too powerful.

Chen Yiran sat up from the sofa and answered the phone.

"Old Qiu, still not asleep so late? It must be almost midnight in Beijing."

"I just arrived in the Netherlands, and it's morning here. There's been progress on the lithography machine, so I wanted to let you know."

"You went to the Netherlands, so that means a deal has been reached?"

"Yes, we've reached a preliminary agreement with ASML for five NXT 1950i units. The price is a bit lower than our initial budget. The exact figures are still going through the process, but the basic framework is set. Now, the export license application has been formally submitted to the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, which normally takes four to six months to process. That's why I came to the Netherlands to see old friends and reconnect with them."

"Okay, you have experience, I'll listen to you."

"There's also good news. I sent people to Japan and Taiwan before, and now I have good news to share."

Having spent more time with Qiu Ciyun, Chen Yiran now knows that Qiu speaks in a halting, stuttering manner and particularly enjoys being flattered and praised. He immediately started speaking in a Beijing accent, saying, "Oh!!~, what good news is it~~~"

Qiu Ciyun knew that Chen Yiran was just trying to amuse him, and laughed loudly, saying, "The memory industry is a bloodbath right now. Elpida in Japan has debts exceeding 5.5 billion US dollars. There are rumors in Japan that it will file for bankruptcy by early next year at the latest."

The situation is even worse in Taiwan. Mostron's stock price has plummeted to the brink of delisting, and I've heard that GlobalFoundries is in talks to acquire them at a very low price. Powerchip isn't doing much better; they're already secretly selling DRAM equipment, and I wonder how they'll transform their business.

"So, could we buy some cheap equipment while we're at it?"

"Yes, during bankruptcy liquidation, equipment is priced based on residual value, which can be incredibly low. If we buy it now, they'll be happy to accept it, and the price is practically free. The key is that a lot of the equipment overlaps with our Wanguoyuan's production lines, so we can replenish a lot of equipment cheaply."

Etching machines, thin film deposition, CMP polishing, and metrology are all universally applicable. The hardware for DRAM and logic chips in these front-end processes is identical; the only difference lies in the process formulation. The packaging side is even more straightforward: dicing, mounting, molding, testing, and sorting—whether it's DRAM chips or mobile phone chips, the same equipment is used.

"What about the lithography machine?"

"The lithography machines won't work. The DUV lithography machines at DRAM manufacturers have different configurations than the exposure field sizes we need, and most of Elpida's machines are older models installed in 2006, which aren't precise enough for 28nm logic. So we still have to buy new lithography machines from ASML at full price; there's no way to cut corners on that."

However, this already saves a lot of money. Otherwise, I would really be having a headache dealing with the packaging equipment requirements that Mr. Jiang mentioned. If we buy everything new, the total cost of our equipment could reach more than two billion US dollars.

Chen Yiran thought for a moment and said, "Buy with confidence. The memory market is currently in a slump, so it's the cheapest time to enter. We can even build our own memory factory. If Elpida really goes bankrupt, we can acquire as much of it as possible."

There was a silence of about five seconds on the other end of the phone.

"Isn't taking over memory production capacity too much? Isn't that spreading the business too thin?"

Chen Yiran opened a bottle of Coke and said, "Don't worry, we'll take it all. We need the memory business line too."

Qiu Ciyun continued to offer some advice: "I know you have great technical skills, and you just sold your technology for so much money, but 17 billion US dollars is definitely not enough."

Subsequently, WanGuoYuan's profits in China were not very considerable. Although I am not a designer, I have some knowledge of the domestic chip design industry.

There are very few domestic companies willing to pay the annual fee for legitimate software. Of course, using pirated software will cause many problems, but small and medium-sized companies don't care at all.

"You've expanded so much right away; I'm worried we won't have enough funds to sustain it halfway through."

Chen Yiran firmly stated, "No need to consider it. If the money isn't enough, I can increase the investment. The Chinese EDA market may not be as good as it seems, but it's still quite competitive globally. I've made a lot of money here in the US, and memory is already part of my future plans."

That's the truth. The memory on the chip is also very important. If we don't develop it ourselves, we'll be held back. He actually saw this mentioned in a video in his past life.

Even though domestically produced memory and SSDs have become incredibly cheap in 2026, the supply of truly high-end, high-bandwidth memory is still hampered by technological bottlenecks.

Huawei even developed a very strange technology called UCM, which involves intelligent grading and dynamic control.

But as the saying goes, when you're poor, you resort to tactical maneuvers; when you're rich, you bombard the enemy. If you don't lack high-bandwidth memory, why bother with all this unnecessary stuff?

Qiu Ciyun could only nod in agreement: "Alright, whether you're the boss or a tycoon, I'll listen to you. But there's one more thing, you have to take on the responsibilities of your boss."

Then the Dutch will start the review; the first thing the export license review officer will do is Google your name. Your American image needs to get moving; I've been looking at your Twitter lately, and it's still not great.

"I'm very active. I film videos of my dog ​​every day, share food, and even guns. I have 100,000 followers now."

"Your content isn't the same as the reality TV celebrities in the US or the internet celebrities in China. This won't do."

You need to attend industry conferences, appear on financial programs, and engage in Twitter flame wars. Tie your name to Silicon Valley. Make sure that when the Dutch Google you, they see a brilliant tech upstart, living a decadent, arrogant, and completely apolitical.

"corruption?"

"Yes! We've thought about it carefully, and we need to take advantage of your age. Sports cars, parties, Hollywood. In short, the more you appear in the American media over the next four months, the better. The more you resemble a young, spoiled rich kid with the American Dream, the faster the Dutch will criticize you."

"What the hell? I think it feels pretty good, but does it actually work?"

"Use your brilliant brain to think about it: a wealthy person in America who spends money extravagantly every day and is indulging in the decadent lifestyle of capitalist society—that's one of our own."

"Let me think about it. I'm very busy with work, and I can't live a life of luxury every day. I'm thinking of trying to date a few Hollywood actresses. My new girlfriend is actually an actress, but she's just started out and isn't very famous yet."

"Look at you, look at you. I probably don't even need to tell you. You're probably like that by nature."

Chen Yiran thought for a while, but still couldn't come up with a rebuttal.

Qiu Ciyun continued to instruct, "Remember, you must get restless! That's all for now, I'm going to have breakfast. I'll let you know if there's any new information."

"Um, okay then, thank you for your hard work."

Chen Yiran was speechless. Restlessness, corruption—how could this be allowed?

Just as I was about to discuss it with Jasmine, I heard a beeping sound in my ear.

This was the sound of a carnivorous plant detecting a familiar car on a nearby road. Chen Yiran knew Ted had arrived, so she put the matter out of her mind for the time being.

When Ted came in, the first thing he did was ask his son.

"How was it? How did Wang Zhiwu perform at the company? I heard that on April Fool's Day, during that name tag ripping game, he single-handedly dominated, ripping off the names of more than a dozen people, but ultimately only narrowly lost and came in second place?"

Chen Yiran almost spat out her water: "His performance at the company was just average, but is that what he was bragging about to you? He tore apart more than a dozen people?"

"Oh, didn't he come in second?"

Chen Yiran laughed heartily, then explained, "We did get second place. There are two departments in the company that only have one person. One is him, the legal department. The other is our Vice President of Operations, Catherine, who is the only one in administration."

Both of them had been hiding from the beginning. When the other groups had torn down only one person, Catherine came out first and tore that person down. Then the whole company searched the room for Wang Zhiwu.

Finally, they discovered he was asleep under her desk. Even so, Catherine showed him great courtesy by not taking advantage of the situation, instead waking Wang Zhiwu for a direct confrontation, which Wang Zhiwu lost.

"Catherine is a woman, isn't she?"

"Yes."

Ted sighed: "His athletic ability is terrible, just like his mother's. Anyway, let's talk about the project you mentioned."

Chen Yiran explained the AMD situation, and Ted thought about it for a moment and felt that there was only one problem: "The conditions are all quite clear, and there won't be much room for misinterpretation in the contract, so it's relatively easy to draft."

The only issue is that AMD GPUs' market share in general computing has increased to over 10%. It's important to clarify which third-party organization will verify this.

Chen Yiran nodded and said, "I don't think they would dare to cheat me, but it would be best if you wrote this down clearly."

"Okay, then I'll be going now."

After seeing Ted off, Chen Yiran began discussing with Jasmine: "How do you think I can show that I conform to capitalist values?"

Hey, it's just about eating, drinking, and having fun, right? But I have to remind you, an alarm you set last year went off today.

"Last year? What did I ask you to remind me of?"

We need to sell two of the stocks we bought.

Chen Yiran took out his phone, glanced at his holdings, and nodded: "I've got an idea. I'll post this profit on Twitter later. It will make me look very wealthy, and it will also reassure Lao Qiu so he can work with peace of mind and know that I'm making money easily."