Chapter 242: A Military Representative

The virtual factory! t could make the impossible possible. The 7-nanometer, which was conquered by Zhongxin International within 8 months, was an example of its capabilities.

He Jin Long was more or less sold by the words of father and son. After all, the breakthrough achieved by Zhongxin International was an industrial legend. Even now, there were many who did not believe that it was real. They still insisted that it was an elaborate hoax… There were many related articles on the internet claiming that they had exposed the so-called hoax. For example, the famous anti-counterfeit activist, ‘Fang Zhouzi,’ had written an article titled “Ten questions surrounding Zhongxin International’s 7-nm chip.” The resulting impact of this article was huge. The price of Zhongxin International’s stock fell steeply.

He Jin Long had read the article too and he had become extremely doubtful about the 7-nanometer chip. But the doubts that he had had all disappeared. He received an excellent answer to his questions. The amazing technology of the virtual factory could indeed create an industrial legend!

Chen Jin exhorted, “President He, the technology of the virtual factory cannot be announced to the public yet. I hope that that you can help to keep it a secret. It’s best that this technology is only known by a few.”

“Yes, I will keep my lips sealed!”

…

The next day, at the commercial aircraft engine manufacturing company., the Chairman of Shangfa Corporation, Tan Ruisong, who was feeling the abrupt pressure by the West’s recent ban on Leap X engines, had received a call from President He from Shang Fei Corporation yesterday.

“How is this possible?” Upon hearing of the virtual factory, his initial reaction was one of shock and disbelief. “How can the simulation technology of a supercomputer be so powerful?”

He Jinlong had no choice but to provide an explanation. He also used Zhongxin International as an example. Tan Ruisong was very close to being sold on the idea. He said on the spot, “I’ll go to Xing Hai Technologies tomorrow to discuss a partnership with President Chen!”

…

As Shangfa’s headquarters was also located in Shang Hai, in the early morning, Tan Ruisong arrived at the lobby of Xing Hai Technologies headquarters. He managed to get a meeting with Chen Jin only after waiting for nearly two hours.

In the meeting room, sitting across from Chen Jin, Tan Ruisong asked impatiently, “President Chen, is it true that the virtual factory technology from your company is able to simulate the development of physical objects?”

Chen Jin shook his head. “You can’t always believe what you hear, but what you see is always real. How about this, I can let you have a trial run of the TC9000 supercomputer. It’s installed with the ‘virtual factory 1.0 technology.’ You can send over a group of engineers to assemble an engine in the virtual factory and see for yourself the extent of difference in the simulated environment and reality.”

“OK!”

—

In the afternoon, a technical team composed of more than a hundred engine specialists was sent by Shangfa Corporation. The team entered the fourth development plant of Xing Hai Technologies. As the body of the engine was on the smaller side and the CAD industrial design blueprint could be imported into the virtual factory, the engine could be generated straightaway. The expert team assembled an engine in just a few hours.

On that very same night, they received the first batch of valuable data.

“This is really useful!”

“There is less than 0.1-kilonewton difference between the thrust generated by the simulated engine and what is generated in reality. The law of thrust changes basically remains the same.”

“By increasing the supply of fuel, the thrust is raised to around 148-kilonewtons… Eh, the engine interval surge issue actually appears here too. This indicates that our engine does have significant design flaws.”

“Continue to increase fuel supply and see how long it can run under extreme conditions?”

After about ten hours…

Boom!

In the virtual factory, the internal parts of the engine had overheated and subsequently been blown into bits. A specialist who had been monitoring the test data all night long with no sleep said, “It’s nearly the same. All the test results are virtually the same as what happened in reality.”

Everyone looked at each other. Then, the joy and excitement that they could not suppress burst out of them. There were even some who could not hold back their tears and started crying.

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“We’ve suffered too many scoldings and have been the target of too much finger-pointing all these years.”

“It’s not that we’re incompetent. The annual funds of 1.5 billion allocated to us are simply not enough.”

“According to the plan, the CJ-1000 engine should have been ready for commercial use by last year. But as its main technical indicators obviously fell short of the Leap X engine, we continued making improvements on it. We needed at least 5 years before we could catch up to the overseas standard… But we have caught up to them now. No matter how good or how advanced the engines from the west are, they will never catch up to us now.”

“We have hope now; we can hope to catch up with them!”

“What a truly amazing device!”

Not bad. It was deja vu. The challenge faced by Z country’s manufacturers of civil aviation engines were almost identical with that of the chip manufacturers. The long period of chip development and production was due to the constant adjustment needed to optimize its production processes. Long periods of time was wasted. On the other hand, the development and production of the aircraft engine required spending huge amounts of money.

After taking into account labor expenses, annual funds of a billion or so were only sufficient to produce 10 test versions to conduct experiments of about 10,000 hours. The average hourly cost of a test was about $100,000. This might look positive, but with Shangfa’s current efficiency, the number of test engines had to be increased to more than 30. The total test hours in a year had to exceed 30,000 hours. A CJ-1000 that was comparable to the Leap X could be produced before 20X5 only under these conditions. This meant that the annual fund allocation had to be increased to 3 billion and above.

Although the state-run enterprises of Z country were large and powerful, there were also many areas where expenses ran high. It was impossible to allocate unlimited funds to the development of the aircraft engines. However, the dire situation of Shangfa Corporation would be improved radically with the use of the virtual factory. As long as the computing power of the super-calculation was sufficiently large, one could assemble a hundred or even a thousand test engines in the virtual factory. Experiments could be carried out on all the test engines at the same time. Adjustments and optimizations could be continuously made. If the engine was spoiled beyond repair in the tests, a new one could be generated immediately.

By developing the engine in this manner, the money and time saved might be even greater than what the chip manufacturers had experienced. They would be able to produce a CJ-1000 engine that met the standards within 6 months or so. It was not an impossibility to fully solve the problem within a year!

…

Tan Ruisong asked, “President Chen, how much does your company charge to use one of the virtual factories?” He was no longer in doubt about the prowess of the virtual factory. Now, he simply wanted to ask about the charges!

Chen Jin said, “I’ll give you two alternatives. The first; you can rent a TC900 with a computing speed of less than 10 quadrillion Flops for a very friendly price. You simply have to pay an electricity bill of $100,000 every day. This price should be reasonable?”

“Yes, very reasonable!” Tan Ruisong shook his head. This was a steal!

“However, the computer power of the TC9000 is too low. It can only run 15 test engines at the same time and it has a mere 99.99% match with reality. There would still be a definite difference between the simulation and reality. Hence, I’m offering you a second choice. You can directly purchase a ‘Supernova 1’ supercomputer that has a computing speed of 10 quadrillion Flops, which is 15 times that of the TC9000. It can assemble up to more than 200 engines each time. It is installed with the ‘virtual factory 2.0’ that has a 99.9999% and above match with reality. There is a smaller margin for error. You can do as you like with the supercomputer after you purchase it. You can develop two, three, or even more models of engines at the same time… You are free to do with it as you will.”

Tan Ruisong’s eyes brightened immediately. “How much are you selling that supercomputer for?”

“1 billion.” Chen Jin said, “This price is an absolute steal. My father has reminded me not to profit from my dealings with you, only to recover the hardware production costs and the R&D costs of the software.”

It was true that Chen Gang had urged him about this. He had advised Chen Jin to support the project on the domestic large scale passenger aircraft by helping to reduce the costs of the project. Large quantities of C919 would be sold in the future. Chen Jin’s efforts would play a part in it too… Chen Jin agreed after some thought.

Tan Ruisong said without hesitation, “I choose the second option!”

It was a steal indeed! He had never heard of a 10 quadrillion Flops supercomputer with a manufacturing cost of less than 1 billion. In addition, it went without saying that the value of the virtual factory was far greater than the supercomputer itself.

Hence, an agreement was reached.

…

Then, after a mere day had passed, a row of military personnel decked out in their blue uniforms arrived at Xing Hai Technologies. The group was led by the Chief and Air Vice Marshall, Yuan Lang. He looked big and robust. He was the representative selected by the Z Aviation Industry Group. As he witnessed this group of people in his company, Chen Jin enquired about the purpose of their visit.

The words from Yuan Lang greatly surprised Chen Jin. “Um, we want to purchase three ‘Supernova 1’. Erm, all those that are installed with the virtual factory.”

F**k.

Chen Jin wanted to curse out loud on the spot. It was one thing if that Tan Ruisong fellow had taken advantage of him. But he even betrayed him and summoned his small-time buddies to get a free meal from him.

Shangfa Corporation was a shareholding company. The Z Aviation Industry Group held 40% of its shares; it was the biggest shareholder of the corporation. It was only yesterday that Ruisong had signed the purchase agreement with Xing Hai Technologies, and today the military representative had arrived. It was evident who had told the secret.

Chen Jin felt a sense of helplessness as he was faced with the expectant yet ill-at-ease expression of Yuan Lang.