After October, Zhang Lexing's own Red River Fund had swelled its cash to $1.5 billion through overt or covert investments, and took advantage of the stock market crash to invest in many potential listed companies. Most of the huge sums of money obtained through Graham's operation are lying quietly in the secret fund accounts overseas, waiting for the reverse operation to turn the darkness into light, as for the future direction of the funds, Zhang Lexing has already planned. The first $3 billion will be used to set up a hedge fund company, which will be deployed in an island nation from now on, and the best preparation for the real feast in three years. The second tranche of US$3.8 billion will be invested in Hong Kong, mainly for the research and development of the microelectronics research institute and the upgrading of the chip factory production line.

With the money in hand, Zhang Lexing began to think about investing again. The first target is locked in a Singapore innovation company that has been observed for a long time, which is a company that focuses on sound card technology research, but because it has not been able to get results, it has gradually fallen into a financial embarrassment, Zhang Lexing's request for shares in the company's chairman Shen Wangfu seems to be not much different from sending charcoal in the snow, so the Red River Fund invested 16 million US dollars to win 48% of the equity of the innovation company. Zhang Lexing's investment is not intended for the innovative company itself, but is really interested in 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, spending $12 million to pocket Dolby Laboratories in London. This acquisition is not because Zhang Lexing intends to enter the film industry, but because he knows that the Dolby AC-3 will be widely used in the future, and through this investment, he can completely save the patent fees paid on it in the future, and even charge others in turn, which can be said to be a sure profit.

Having completed two important investments, Zhang was about to take a break and watch the wind turn when an application for a project investment from Neuclay, Wisconsin, ruined his plans. This is a supercomputer development project undertaken by a newly established company, and the project brief introduces the research objectives...... Research on a product that was 100 times faster than the fastest computers at the time, with a plan for 128 engine ......." This is an extremely crazy plan, as far as Zhang Lexing knows, the current supercomputer generally has a maximum of 16 engines, and the difficulty of adding engines will increase exponentially. One of the biggest difficulties is reflected in two points, one is the problem of operating system writing, the more engines, the more places that need to be coordinated, the more difficult it is to write the operating system, but the supercomputer R&D team can generally solve this problem by themselves; the other is the problem of heat dissipation, which is the most critical problem, and it is also the most serious problem, there are many opportunities for debugging the operating system writing errors, the heat dissipation problem is not dealt with well, and it may become an oven as soon as it is turned on, and even directly burn the machine made by the R&D team with a lot of time and money directly into 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 but think of the ubiquitous "cloud computing" in the Internet era in his previous life. In Zhang Lexing's view, the so-called "cloud computing" is not complicated, but it is composed of cloud network, computing cloud and cloud operating system, which are similar to the composition of conventional computing systems. Cloud networks are just more complex, faster, and more stable networks, and if you master Cisco, you will need to worry about fiber optic networks when the time is right in the future. Computing clouds are, to put it bluntly, high-density, high-performance computing clusters, and it would be more appropriate if they could be afforded by supercomputers. The cloud operating system can be said to integrate parallel computing and distributed computing, and it is also the key to maximize the performance of the entire computing cloud. "Cloud computing" can be said to be a rather fashionable application in the future, scientific computing, data query, astronomy and geography are everywhere, and even many games and anti-virus software have to play the "cloud xx" signboard.

Among these applications, Zhang Lexing is most interested in games, of course, playing many online games with a single server capped at 10,000, Zhang Lexing has always fantasized that one day many players will no longer be divided by the server, and it is best to be able to unify the server globally like in some YY novels. In Zhang Lexing's view, perhaps "cloud computing" can solve this problem. Of course, if you want to know if "cloud computing" is really so strong, 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 of the supercomputer, after seeing the application amount at the back, Zhang Lexing felt that he was so impressed by the courage of this company. In the section on the estimated investment amount of the project, it is written, "...... The initial estimate is not less than 100 million US dollars ......", Zhang Lexing knew that the supercomputer cost money, but he did not expect that it would cost so much money to develop a new machine. Closing the information and throwing it back on the table, Zhang Lexing suddenly remembered that the name "Chen Shiqing", the contact person of this company, was a little familiar, so he turned the information to the pages where the team introduced the information, and looked for the part about Chen Shiqing in it.

Chen Shiqing was born in Nanping, Fujian Province in 1944. He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From August 1979 ~ September 1987, he worked in the R&D center of Cray Company, and left his previous position as vice president and chief design engineer of ......the company.

This time, Zhang Lexing finally remembered that Chen Shiqing was the developer and patent owner of the super blade computer in later generations. Super blade, this is not a typical high-density, high-performance computer, can be used as one of the pillars of "cloud computing", Zhang Lexing feels that the opportunity is 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 left on the information, and it rang for a while, and someone finally answered the phone.

"Hello, is Dr. Chen Shiqing here?"

"I just, what's the matter with you. ”

"I'm Zhang Lexing from the Red River Foundation, and I want to talk to you about your application for a supercomputer project today. ”

"Okay, what's the problem?"

"Actually, I have the idea of investing in this project, but the amount of investment involved is so large, I hope to meet and talk to you. ”

"Really, are you really willing to invest in our project," Chen Shiqing's voice trembled a little with excitement.

"That's right, it's true, you see if I'm over or you're here. ”

"I'd better come here, huh...... There will be a flight tomorrow morning, and I will be able to arrive in the afternoon, and I will contact you at that time. ”

At 2 p.m. the next day, Zhang Lexing received a call from Chen Shiqing in the office that he had already gotten off the plane. After waiting for almost an hour, Chen Shiqing appeared at the door of the office.

"Dr. Chen Shiqing, do you want tea or coffee?"

"Black coffee, no sugar, thank you. ”

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

Jenny's movements were very fast, Zhang Lexing had only chatted with Chen Shiqing for two minutes, and she had already brewed two cups of coffee and sent them in. Chen Shiqing took the coffee very politely, took a sip, and put it on the coffee table next to him.

"Dr. Chen Shiqing, you just introduced the situation of going to work in Clay Company, it seems that Professor Clay values you very much, why did you think of leaving?"

"Professor Clay is a very good person, and when I was at Clay, he taught me a lot of things. But since I came up with this new research project, the company has been completely reluctant to give me a chance, and even Professor Clay can't understand my idea, and they are worried that there will be too many engines and it will be difficult to design a finished product. I can't help it, there is no saying in China, 'different ways, do not conspire with each other', since everyone's design concept is different, you can only do your own thing, so I left Clay. Of course, I'm not alone, there are still more than 40 experts in Clay who have the same idea as me, and this time I went with him, and after we left Clay, we set up a new company in Neuclair, Wisconsin, with the intention of continuing this supercomputer research project. ”

"It's true, everyone has the same idea to twist into a rope. But you should not only have found us as an investor for this project. ”

"Well, yes, maybe it's bad luck, the company was just established not long ago, and it was trying to fight for R&D funds, but it happened to encounter a stock market crash some time ago. We contacted a lot of companies, and several of them were very interested, but after the stock market crash, there was no news, and I guess it may be because of the tight funds now. ”

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

"That's right. Chen Shiqing's expression was a little depressed all of a sudden, maybe he had encountered too many such situations during this time.

"But you don't have to worry, I still have some money to spare, according to your project requirements, the expected research and development time is about five years, and the investment is not less than 100 million US dollars. $100 million for five years, no problem. ”

"Ah, that's really thanks!" Chen Shiqing's eyes lit up suddenly.

"It's okay, everyone is a Chinese working hard overseas, if you have the conditions, help each other, and besides, if you develop a supercomputer, maybe our company can still use it." Well, I will arrange for the board to discuss this project as soon as possible, do you find a place to stay for two days and wait for the results, or go back first, and I'll tell you when the results are available. ”

"Since there is no problem with the investment, there is a lot of preparatory work that can already be started, so I should go back first and get the work done. When you have the result, just let me know. ”

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

……

A few days later, an internal meeting of VisualSystem was held, and the main topic was the company's recent investment projects, including Chen's supercomputer project. In fact, the Red River Fund can afford this investment project, but considering that the supercomputer should be used in many places, VisualSystem may also need it, and Yang Xinxin made a lot of money during the stock market crash. Most of the board members had heard of supercomputers, but they couldn't see what benefits this thing could bring to VisualSystem, and in the end, it was for the sake of the majority shareholder's face, and finally agreed that VisualSystem would pay half of the $50 million invested in the supercomputer development project, and the other half would have to come out of the Red River Fund.

After the meeting, Zhang Lexing immediately informed Chen Shiqing of the news and told him that the $100 million would be paid to his company in installments, and the first installment of $10 million would be transferred immediately after the two sides signed the agreement.

Soon after, VisualSystem sent representatives to sign an agreement with Supercomputer Systems to jointly fund $100 million from the Red River Fund and VisualSystem to support Supercomputing Systems in developing a new generation of supercomputers. With the first tranche of funding in place, Supercomputing Systems' research program was officially launched. With the shadow of the computing cloud in place, it's time for the cloud operating system.

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