game trailblazer

Chapter 51 Atypical “Cloud” Initiatives

After October, Zhang Lexing’s own Red River Fund has swelled to $10 billion in cash through overt or covert investments, and took advantage of the stock market crash to invest in many potential listed companies.Most of the huge sum of money obtained through Graham's operation is lying quietly in overseas secret fund accounts, waiting for the reverse operation to turn the darkness into light. As for the future whereabouts of this fund, Zhang Lexing has long planned.The first 15 billion US dollars will be used to establish a hedge fund company, which will be deployed in an island country from now on, the best preparation for the real feast in three years.The second tranche of US$30 billion will be invested in Hong Kong, mainly for the research and development of the Institute of Microelectronics and the upgrading of the production lines of chip factories.

With spare money in hand, Zhang Lexing began to think about investing again.The first target is an innovative company in Singapore that has been observed for a long time. This is a company that focuses on the research of sound card technology. Chang Shen Wangfu seems to be almost like sending charcoal in a timely manner, so Honghe Fund invested 1600 million US dollars to win 48% of the equity of the innovative company.Zhang Lexing's investment this time is not aimed at the innovative company itself. What he is really interested in is the legendary sound card for PCs that the innovative company is developing.

It didn't take long for Zhang Lexing to make a second move, acquiring Dolby Laboratories in London for US$1200 million.This acquisition is not because Zhang Lexing intends to enter the film industry, but because he knows that Dolby AC-3 will be widely used in the future. This investment can completely save the patent fees paid for it in the future, and it can even be reversed. Charging others can be said to be a steady profit without loss.

Having completed two important investments, Zhang Lexing was planning to take a break and wait and see the wind direction, but a project investment application from Neucle, Wisconsin, ruined his plan.This is a supercomputer development project conducted by a newly established company. The project brief briefly introduces the research objectives, "...research on products that are 100 times faster than the fastest computer at that time, and plan to use 128 engines... ...".This is an extremely crazy plan. As far as Zhang Lexing knows, the current supercomputer generally only has 16 engines at most, and the difficulty of adding more engines will increase exponentially.The biggest difficulty is reflected in two points. One is the problem of writing the operating system. The more engines there are, the more places need to be coordinated, and the more difficult it is to write the operating system. However, supercomputer R&D teams can generally solve this problem by themselves; The other is the heat dissipation problem, which is the most critical and serious problem. There are still many opportunities for debugging if the operating system is written incorrectly. The machines that took a lot of time and money to make go straight to coke.For this kind of company that dares to challenge the limit, Zhang Lexing still admires its courage.

Seeing the development plan of the supercomputer, Zhang Lexing couldn't help thinking of the ubiquitous "cloud computing" in the Internet age in his previous life.In Zhang Lexing's view, the so-called "cloud computing" is actually not complicated, but is composed of cloud network, computing cloud, and cloud operating system. These components are similar to the composition of conventional computing systems.The cloud network is nothing more than a more complex, higher-speed, and more stable network. If you have mastered Cisco, you will get the fiber optic network when the time is right in the future. There should be no need to worry about this aspect.To put it bluntly, the computing cloud is a high-density, high-performance computing cluster, and it would be more appropriate if it can be afforded by a supercomputer.The cloud operating system can be said to be a fusion of parallel computing and distributed computing, and it is also the key to the performance of the entire computing cloud. "Cloud computing" can be said to be a very fashionable application in the future. Scientific computing, data query, astronomy and geography are ubiquitous. Even many games and anti-virus software have the signboard of "cloud xx".

Among these applications, Zhang Lexing is most interested in games, of course. He has played many online games with a single-server cap of [-]. Zhang Lexing has always imagined that one day many players will no longer be divided by servers. It is best to be like some YY novels. That way the global unified server.In Zhang Lexing's view, maybe "cloud computing" can solve this problem.Of course, if you want to know whether "cloud computing" is really so powerful, the best way is to experience it yourself, so Zhang Lexing has always hoped to build his own "cloud computing" platform as soon as possible, of course it is still too early.

Continuing to flip through the application materials for the supercomputer, and seeing the application amount behind it, Zhang Lexing felt that he was overwhelmed with admiration for the company's courage.In the section about the estimated investment of the project, it was written, "...preliminarily estimated to be no less than 1 million US dollars...". Zhang Lexing knew that supercomputers cost money, but he didn't expect that it would take so much to develop a new machine now. Too much money.After closing the documents and throwing them back on the table, Zhang Lexing suddenly remembered that the name of the company's contact person "Chen Shiqing" sounded familiar, so he turned the documents to the pages introducing the team and looked for the part about Chen Shiqing.

"Chen Shiqing was born in Nanping, Fujian Province in 1944. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering of National Taiwan University and a doctorate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From August 1979 to September 8, he worked in the R&D center of Cray Corporation. He left his previous position as vice president and chief executive of the company. Design engineer, main work performance: Participated in the research and development of three generations of Cray supercomputers, including presiding over the research and development of Cray X-MP supercomputers..."

This time Zhang Lexing finally remembered that Chen Shiqing was the developer and patent owner of the so-called super blade computer.Super blade, isn't this a typical high-density, high-performance computer? It can be used as one of the pillars of "cloud computing". Zhang Lexing feels that opportunities are beckoning to him in front of him. This super blade technology must not be let go.After making up his mind, Zhang Lexing called the phone number left on the file, it rang for a while, and finally someone answered the phone.

"Hello, is Dr. Chen Shiqing here?"

"I am, what's the matter with you."

"I'm Zhang Lexing from the Honghe Fund. I saw your application for a supercomputer project today, and I want to chat with you."

"Okay, what's the problem?"

"Actually, I have the idea of ​​investing in this project, but it involves such a large amount of investment. I hope to meet and talk with you."

"Really? Are you really willing to invest in our project?" Chen Shiqing's voice trembled with excitement.

"That's right, it's true. You see, it's me going over here, or you coming over here."

"Let me come over, um..., there is a flight tomorrow morning, and I can arrive in the afternoon. I will contact you then."

At 2 o'clock in the afternoon the next day, Zhang Lexing received a call from Chen Shiqing in the office, saying that he had already got off the plane.After waiting for almost an hour, Chen Shiqing appeared at the door of the office in a hurry.

"Dr. Chen Shiqing, would you like tea or coffee?"

"Black coffee, no sugar, thank you."

Zhang Lexing pressed the intercom button on the desktop and said, "Jenny, make two cups of coffee, one latte and one cup of black coffee without sugar."

Jenny moved very quickly. Zhang Lexing had only chatted with Chen Shiqing for 2 minutes before she had already made two cups of coffee and brought them in.Chen Shiqing took the coffee politely, took a sip, and put it on the coffee table next to him.

"Dr. Chen Shiqing, you just introduced the situation of working in Clay Company. It seems that Professor Clay thinks highly of you. How did you think of leaving?"

"Professor Clay is very kind. When I was in Cray Company, he taught me a lot. But since I proposed this new research project, the company is completely unwilling to give me a chance. Even Professor Clay can't understand my ideas. Thoughts, they are all worried that there are too many engines, and I am afraid it will be difficult to design a finished product. I can’t help it. Isn’t there a saying in China that “the way is different, don’t conspire with each other”. Since everyone has different design concepts, they can only do their own things. Yes, so I left Cray. Of course, I am not alone. There are still more than 40 experts in Cray who think the same as me. This time, I left with them. After we left Cray, we were in Wisconsin A new company (Supercomputing Systems, Inc.) was established in Neukele, state, to continue this supercomputer research project."

"It's true. Only when everyone shares the same ideas can we form a bond. But you should not only find us as an investor for this project."

"Well, yes, maybe it's bad luck. The company was not long after it was established, and was trying to get R&D funds, but it happened to encounter the stock market crash some time ago. We contacted many companies, and several of them were very interested, but after the stock market crash After such a move, there is no news, I guess it may be because the funds are relatively tight now."

"Fortunately, our company still has some money, but the amount is so large, I need to submit it to the board of directors for discussion."

"That's it." Chen Shiqing's expression suddenly became a little depressed, maybe because he had encountered too many such situations during this period of time.

"But you don't have to worry. I still have some spare money. According to your project requirements, the estimated research and development time is about five years, and the investment is no less than 1 million US dollars. 1 million US dollars in five years, no problem."

"Ah, thank you so much!" Chen Shiqing's eyes lit up.

"It's okay. We are all Chinese working overseas. If you have the conditions, let's help each other. Besides, if you develop this supercomputer, maybe our company can still use it. Well, I will arrange the board of directors to discuss this project as soon as possible. Should you find a place to stay for two days and wait for the results, or go back first, and I'll tell you when I have the results."

"Since the investment is OK, there are a lot of preparatory work that can be started. I'd better go back and get the work done. If there is a result, just let me know."

"Well, if you have any new ideas, you can also find me. I look forward to seeing you next time..." Zhang Lexing and Chen Shiqing shook hands and said goodbye.

……

A few days later, an internal meeting of VisualSystem was held. The main topic this time was the company's recent investment projects, and Chen Shiqing's supercomputer project was among them.In fact, Honghe Fund can fully afford this investment project, but considering that supercomputers should be used in many places, VisualSystem may also need them, and Yang Xinxin has made a lot of money during the stock market crash. At least, Zhang Lexing skillfully dragged Yang Xinxin into the water in line with the idea of ​​"everyone invests, and I take happiness".Most members of the board of directors have heard about supercomputers, but they can't see what benefits this thing can bring to VisualSystem. In the end, for the sake of the major shareholders, they finally agreed that VisualSystem should bear the investment in this supercomputer development project. Half of the 5000 million US dollars, and the other half can only be paid from the Red River Fund.

After the meeting, Zhang Lexing immediately reported the news to Chen Shiqing, and told him that the US$1 million will be paid to his company in installments, and the first installment of US$1000 million will be transferred immediately after the two parties sign the agreement.

Soon, VisualSystem sent a representative to sign an agreement with Supercomputing Systems, and Red River Fund and VisualSystem jointly invested 1 million US dollars to support Supercomputing Systems to develop a new generation of supercomputers.With the first phase of funds in place, the research project of Supercomputing Systems Company officially started.With the shadow of the computing cloud, the next step is the cloud operating system.

(End of this chapter)