I really just want to be a scholar

"Mr. Cheng, this is the 'Supplier Selection Research Report' submitted by the Technical Department. The final selection recommendation of Mr. Xu's team is that for the desktop PC and server chips we plan to purchase this year, it is better to purchase domestically produced chips above 3nm, but for 2nm, it is recommended to choose foreign ones, which have higher cost performance and better stability." The secretary said and put the report on Cheng Zhiping's desk.

"Got it." Cheng Zhiping signaled the secretary to leave first, and he slowly flipped through the report. As he read it, he couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

In the past decade, thanks to the "dream chip materials", Xiaguo's chip technology has made it possible for domestically produced chips with a 7nm process to easily outperform the top-end 5nm chips of foreign manufacturers, and the price is less than one-tenth of the latter. In addition, the release of "Qiguang EDA" has also made the design of domestically produced chips no longer a bottleneck, and has enabled the continuous design of excellent chips in various segments.

With its superior performance, ultra-low price and targeted design, Xia's chip industry has developed rapidly. In less than three years, it has occupied Xia's mainstream market and has made great strides in the international market. Its market share has continued to rise, making foreign chip manufacturers uneasy and anxious.

Later, because of the "Technology Mutually Beneficial and Complementary Exchange Platform" in the "Planetary Shield Plan" five years ago, Xia Guo used the full set of "Zhu Rong Zhi Guang" fast reactor nuclear fission power generation technology to exchange for a full set of advanced 2nm lithography machine technology, which enabled Xia Guo's chip industry to once again usher in a major leap forward. At its peak, it even occupied % of the international market share in one fell swoop.

However, the international chip giants have extremely deep technical background. In the past two years, they have completely cracked the secret of "dream chip materials" and can produce chips with the same cost-effectiveness.

Better cost management and quality control capabilities have enabled Intel and AMD to demonstrate strong competitiveness in the latest 2nm chips, especially in server chips and desktop PC chips, where the prices are even 5% lower than those of their competitors.

Don't underestimate a mere 5%. For many IT industry giants that place large orders, it is a considerable cost that is very necessary to save.

Moreover, Xiaguo has not yet fully digested and absorbed the full set of 2nm lithography machine technology. At present, there is indeed a gap between the production capacity, quality control and yield rate of 2nm chips and the top international manufacturers.

Therefore, in this report, Chief Engineer Xu Zhenpeng prefers to choose products from top international manufacturers for 2nm chips. After all, they have more advantages in terms of cost-effectiveness and quality.

From an emotional point of view, Cheng Zhiping is naturally more inclined to choose and support domestic chips, but he must perform his duties conscientiously. As the general manager of a large electronic information industry group in Xia State, Cheng Zhiping must not ignore the cost differences when considering the chip selection for its desktops, laptops, servers and other equipment.

Cheng Zhiping sighed lightly and was about to sign "agree" on the report when the phone suddenly rang. It was Chief Engineer Xu Zhenpeng calling.

"Mr. Cheng, could you please put aside the report we submitted this morning?" Xu Zhenpeng's voice was a little excited, and it was obvious that he was in a very uneasy mood.

Cheng Zhiping was a little surprised. Xu Zhenpeng was usually quiet and seldom excited. Could it be that there were major mistakes in this report? But logically speaking, Xu Zhenpeng was careful and prudent in his work, even meticulous, so it was unlikely that there would be such a flaw.

"What's wrong? Is there something wrong with the content?"

"No, it's the external environment that has changed. That report is likely outdated! Just thirty minutes ago, Xiaxin International suddenly held a press conference and launched a series of ten 'first-generation Shenguang quantum chips' suitable for desktop PCs and servers. It also announced that it will launch quantum chips suitable for mobile phones within a year!"

Cheng Zhiping sat up straight at once: "What did you say? Quantum chip?" He thought he had heard it wrong and asked subconsciously.

Everyone knows that quantum chips are the trend of the future, but quantum chip technology is not mature and has only existed in laboratories. It is also huge in size and can only be used in supercomputer systems at most. It is not suitable for personal computers and servers, let alone mobile phones.

“It is indeed a real quantum chip! And it is a small quantum chip that can be put into commercial use! It can stably achieve 10-level quantum calculations!”

10-level quantum computing! ?
Cheng Zhiping was completely stunned.

What does this mean? You should know that the most advanced quantum chip announced in the world is the 5120-bit superconducting quantum computing chip launched by IBM a year ago. The quantum computer "Condor" launched by this chip easily surpassed the traditional supercomputer "Frontier" with a computing speed of 100 billion times per second, reaching 1000 billion times per second.

Even according to IBM's most optimistic forecast, it would be quite remarkable to be able to launch a 10000-bit quantum chip within five years, but to reach the commercial threshold, it still needs to be at the 30000-qubit level to have sufficient commercial cost-effectiveness - mainly because the quantum chip is too large, and the supporting software and hardware systems must all be customized, which is too costly.

The quantum chip launched by Xiaxin International now directly reaches the level of 10 quantum bits?

Cheng Zhiping swallowed his saliva: "Can it really be used commercially? How big is it? Does the entire computer system ecosystem need to be redesigned?"

"The size of the current 'first-generation Shenguang quantum chip' is indeed not advantageous. It is about three times larger than the current ordinary chips, but it can be easily connected to the current mainstream motherboard system with a converter, and there is no need to rebuild the entire system ecosystem! If this solution is adopted, the overall performance of the current mainstream 2nm chip can be achieved by about five times."

Cheng Zhiping was so shocked that he was speechless. Xu Zhenpeng continued to speak excitedly, "Of course, if you want to give full play to the performance of the 'first generation of Shenguang quantum chip', it is best to redesign and produce the supporting motherboard, memory, storage and other hardware! Xiaxin International has provided a full set of design solutions and also stated that it will license it to cooperating manufacturers for free for research and production!" Xu Zhenpeng became more and more excited as he spoke, and his speech speed unconsciously accelerated: "As for the operating system, there is no need to worry. Xiaxin International also held a press conference with the manufacturer of the Green Lemon Operating System, Longteng Zaitian Software Technology Co., Ltd., and they said that the latest version of the Green Lemon Operating System can already support the 'Shenguang Quantum Chip'!"

Cheng Zhiping finally uttered a few words in a dry voice: "Price... price?"

"It is 2% lower than the current mainstream 10nm Dream Chip in the world! Judging from the data from the press conference, it really has a super cost-effectiveness. The only worry is whether Xiaxin International's production capacity can keep up. However, it was said in the press conference that the number of quantum chips in the warehouse exceeds million! Alas, no wonder Xiaxin International has reduced the production of Dream Chips since last year. At that time, the industry thought that they were beaten back by international giants, but unexpectedly, they freed up production to produce the 'first generation of Shenguan quantum chips'..."

Cheng Zhiping could no longer listen to what Xu Zhenpeng said next. A 10% reduction in cost, and a domestically made chip, was enough to tip the scales in his favor towards the "first generation of Shenguang quantum chip"!

After he came to his senses, he sat down immediately and gave instructions using lip reading. Soon, the computer screen showed the live online broadcast of Xiaxin International's new product launch conference.

The number of online viewers has exceeded 2 million! And the stock price of Xiaxin International has continued to soar at an astonishing speed!

Obviously the whole world was completely shocked by this unexpected press conference!
Cheng Zhiping stared at the big screen, wanting to know which research institute designed such an epoch-making quantum chip, but he didn't find the answer until the end of the press conference. Faced with reporters' questions, the spokesperson of Xiaxin International just smiled and avoided answering this key question.

But Cheng Zhiping knows that no matter where the quantum chip is developed, the whole era will be different after today's press conference.

The international chip market will soon usher in a major earthquake. Traditional chips, even the old-era chips known as "dream chips", will soon exit the stage of history, and the future will surely be dominated by quantum chips!

As the only country that has mastered the commercial small quantum chip technology, Xia will become the biggest winner in the world!

"That's amazing..."

Cheng Zhiping murmured to himself, and then quickly made up his mind to get the Shenguan quantum chip for testing as soon as possible. He wanted to lead the group and be the first to try out the quantum chip!
……

Just as Cheng Zhiping guessed, Xiaxin International's press conference was like a boulder thrown into a calm lake, and the whole world was thrown into chaos. Countless countries and multinational companies held meetings overnight, urgently and anxiously discussing countermeasures, while Xia's news media frantically published various proud news headlines:
《The shocking press conference of the Shenguang quantum chip! The beginning of a new era! 》

《Record-breaking! The smallest universal commercial quantum chip is released! 》

"my country announces the launch of the world's first commercial quantum chip!"

"The information age has entered a new era! The era when quantum chips dominate the world has arrived!"

"Xiaguo! Xiaguo! Xiaguo! The new era of quantum chips is pioneered and led by Xiaguo!"

There was a lot of cheering and heated discussion on the Internet. While countless people were proud, they were also speculating who the real "father of quantum chip" was. Domestic research institutions related to quantum chips were quickly "exposed", among which the "Green Lemon Quantum Computing Laboratory" under the names of Qin Ke and Ning Qingjun attracted widespread attention.

Unfortunately, although the "Lime Quantum Computing Laboratory" was established for more than ten years, it has hardly released any results in the past five years, and there has not even been any news. As for Qin Ke and Ning Qingjun, they have been focusing on pure theoretical research and teaching in recent years. It is really difficult to link them with quantum chips. Therefore, although many people have cast their speculative eyes on the "Lime Quantum Computing Laboratory", they will eventually return to Xiaxin International, which has been in great glory in the past decade.

Most people speculate that the "first generation of Shenguan quantum chip" should be the result of joint research by Xiaxin International's self-developed team and several well-known domestic quantum chip laboratories, such as the Quantum Technology Innovation Institute of the Xiaxin Academy of Sciences and the Petal Chip Institute.

……

When the whole world was in great shock because of Xiaxin International's press conference, Qin Ke and Ning Qingjun had just finished two undergraduate "You Ask Me Answer" special classes, and were walking hand in hand on the campus road returning to the "Chief Scientist Building" under the respectful gaze of the students.

The phone vibrated, and it was Weiguang that popped up the news about Xiaxin International's press conference.

Qin Ke took a look and just smiled, then put away his phone and turned to Ning Qingjun and whispered, "Wife, quantum chips are now on the market." (End of this chapter)