Rebirth 09: Synthetic Male God

Chapter 983 Lithium-sulfur Batteries and the Eve of Departure

According to the commerce department leader, the China International Science and Technology Expo is expected to be announced soon.

Before the heat of the Hangzhou Summit and the space station rescue incident dies down.

Zhou Rui promised that he would participate with the entire family of Fu Rui Group.

In the second half of the call, the other party also asked about one more thing, which was "lithium-sulfur battery".

In order to ensure that the first-mover advantage lasts as long as possible, until now, the news of mass production of lithium-sulfur batteries is still unknown to the outside world. Only shareholders like Zhou Rui and national industrial departments know about it.

In the process of building patent barriers, there were some scattered and groundless contents, but they were not actively announced and did not attract much attention.

These are two different strategies for the introduction of new technologies: the more distant something is, the sooner it should be released for publicity, to increase stock prices, and to explain the concept.

Those that can really achieve the goal in one step will often choose to go into mass production right after the first launch, giving everyone a big lead, thereby increasing the difficulty for latecomers to catch up.

Otherwise, upon hearing the news that "lithium-sulfur batteries are about to be mass-produced", countless companies, countries, and universities around the world will begin to reorganize their efforts in this area and increase their R&D efforts to catch up.

As a major breakthrough that can influence the global industrial structure, the significance of lithium-sulfur batteries is greater than any "single product", such as new energy vehicles and drones.

Because it is the basis of most technological products.

In the ward, Old Man Mi dozed off with his eyes squinting. Zhou Rui leaned against the windowsill and whispered:
"The laws of physics are there. Patent barriers can only increase the cost and difficulty of others. However, if time is long enough and investment is large enough, it is only a matter of time before they are circumvented. Especially if there are successful cases, various reverse engineering and disassembly will make it easier to lock in the direction."

The Ministry of Commerce also agreed: "Indeed, we have held a meeting with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology before. It is difficult to rely solely on technological leadership to monopolize this field. We must combine 'technological leadership' and 'market leadership'."

Zhou Rui added: "From the beginning, Mr. Wang and I did not intend to make 'lithium-sulfur batteries' exclusive. It is inevitable to supply them to other companies that need batteries, and we do not even rule out supplying them to foreign companies."

"Only when we scale up can we reduce costs and iterate technology faster. On the other hand, if we invade other people's markets, we can interrupt the 'market positive feedback' of competitors from other countries and suppress their survival and profit margins. This is the right way to maintain the first-mover advantage."

“By then, even if they make a breakthrough in this area, their products will always be more expensive, less advanced, and have lower production than ours, so they will always be suppressed.”

The other side asked: "What if trade protectionism occurs?"

"It's still useless. Batteries are not end products, but 'cornerstones'. Blocking our batteries from entering their industrial system will ultimately damage the competitiveness of their own products."

"Let's say an impossible situation occurs, for example, 197 countries around the world ban our batteries from entering the market. We are also the world's second largest consumer market, and our internal demand alone is enough to generate positive feedback. Of course, this is absolutely impossible."

Times have changed, but people in the global village are not crazy.

The new king has been born, why don't you open the door for business? Are you waiting for "Xing Tian" to knock?
"In fact, at most one or two countries with ambition and technological foundation will have such ideas, such as the United States and the West, but don't worry about this, I can handle it."

I believe that those guys who are waiting to survive would be willing to solve some "small problems" for Zhou Rui.

"I understand. Mr. Zhou really has a big picture. I used to think that lithium-sulfur batteries would be monopolized by BYD and Kaiming Intelligent for quite a long time."

"It's not that the scale is big. The value of lithium-sulfur batteries alone is quite terrifying. It's too wasteful to just use them as accessories for other things. Compared with the entire market, the battery demand of our two companies is just a drop in the bucket."

After hanging up the phone, Zhou Rui looked back and saw that Old Man Mickey was almost asleep.

Hearing the noise, he turned around and said with a smile: "Are you talking about big business?"

Zhou Rui gestured: "Not much, just a few hundred million."

Speaking of which, the chip technology of Hongxin International, in which Xiaomi participated, also took off directly under the leadership of Dr. Zhang Richeng's team. Last month, it announced the "7nm production" right at the same time as Qualcomm.

A tense and exciting confrontation is going on, and everyone is putting in their best efforts. Next time, they will compete to see who can break through 5 nanometers first.

The situation of being strangled by chips in the previous life will never happen again. Hongxin International even has the upper hand because they have been taking the "self-research" route since they first came back, under the instruction of the organization, and they made their own lithography machines.

If we had started seven or eight years earlier, the patent barriers would not only not be blocked by others, but would even start to block others.

Old Man Mickey must have come without informing them, otherwise no one would come, and Zhou Rui would not be so annoying as to act on his own initiative, so let it be. Zhou Rui looked at his watch and prepared to leave. There was a nurse guarding outside, but after Zhou Rui came in, the nurse left to avoid suspicion.

I tucked the old man's quilt in. "Have a good rest. I'll arrange everything for you before I go to Ryukyu. By the way, where's Xiao Liu?"

Zhou Ruicai reacted and realized that it was Xiao Liu who should be taking care of Old Man Mi, not the caregiver.

When talking about this, Mickey Mouse said helplessly, "I am also in the hospital. I sprained my ankle last night. My joints are dislocated and my feet are swollen like steamed buns."

"This child is shy and doesn't feel comfortable staying alone in a big hospital. I have to visit him twice a day."

Zhou Rui broke out in a cold sweat. What a niche saying, sixty-year-olds are shy
"Who is taking care of whom between you two?"

Old Man Mickey laughed: "Who knows? He and his mother were both children I watched grow up. It's almost the same to say that I took care of them."

Having lived long enough, Mickey Mouse has long since let go of things.

This is the case for many people. They accompany them when they are young, and then watch them grow old.

"After Xiao Zhang left, the higher-ups said they would send me another orderly. I said, I'm an old man, staying in the village and not doing anything. Why should young people waste their youth to look after me? Xiao Liu happened to have little income, so I asked him to come and collect a salary. He wasn't in the army before, and he hadn't seen the world, so his ability was a little lacking."

Zhou Rui didn't expect there would be such a story.

After helping Old Man Mic adjust the light brightness, Zhou Rui left the ward and the nurse outside walked in.

Zhou Rui met Jia Xingjian and the driver Lao Wang who were guarding the elevator. He greeted them and decided to go to the general ward downstairs to take a look.

As expected, Xiao Liu, who is almost sixty years old, lives in a cramped triple room.

The two beds next to him were occupied by relatives sleeping and caring for them, and he was the only one with his eyes wide open.

He also has a caregiver, arranged by Linto, who helps him with urination and so on. However, his nervousness does not come from whether he has a caregiver or not, but from being "alone" in a big city and lying in the hospital.

However, after Zhou Rui chatted with him for a while, Xiao Liu visibly relaxed.

Because Zhou Rui is a big shot in Xiao Liu's eyes, and knowing a big shot can effectively alleviate the anxiety brought by the big city.

In the following days, as the date of departure for Ryukyu drew closer, Zhou Rui entered another busy period.

Start the phased arrangement work.

At the same time, as a deterrent... No, it was a major event to establish friendly relations with neighbors in all directions, and troops were mobilized in large numbers.

The latest achievements in aircraft, ships, artillery, and intelligent mechanical warfare. This time it’s a big deal.

The Liao Province was even pulled over for a cruise nearby.

Fortunately, Ryukyu is now under its own jurisdiction. If this level of power were gathered somewhere else, it would probably scare people to death.

This was Zhou Rui's second visit to Okinawa. This time he went to support the "joint exercise" and to inspect the Kasate Rocket Base, which attracted a lot of attention.

These two things are both related and seemingly unrelated, but there are a lot of connections this time.

For example, in the "joint exercise", as many as 13 neighboring countries were invited to come for a pilgrimage, no, to watch the fireworks display.

So naturally, such a commemorative place as the Kasute Rocket Base should be brought to everyone's attention.

This will be a major event to further establish who is the father of whom and where is the center of Asia.

(End of this chapter)