As a mage, I just want to pursue the truth

Chapter 28 Brain-Computer Connection
Affected by the epidemic, the office environment in Singapore is sluggish, with the island's office occupancy rate shrinking by 0.3%. Commercial real estate prices have continued to fall.

Kechuang Biopharma spent a huge amount of money to purchase an office building 4km below the Tuas Biomedical Park in Singapore, close to the Pacific Ocean, and Abogen Biopharma was fully responsible for transforming it into a research and development center integrating laboratories and offices.

Lion City’s pharmaceutical R&D industry is very developed, with the Tuas Biomedical Park housing research institutes of a number of multinational pharmaceutical companies including AbbVie, Alcon, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Roche Pharmaceuticals, and Shire.

The supporting facilities are very complete, but the office building chosen by Kechuang Bio is some distance away from the Tuas Biomedical Park, so it can only enjoy some of the conveniences of the Tuas Biomedical Park.

This office building will serve as the research and development center of Kechuang Bio in Singapore. Together with the renovation costs, the total cost is 16.8 billion lion yuan, or about 84 billion RMB.

For Ke Chuang Biotechnology, which has 5 billion euros on its books but has not spent anything, this amount of money is at best a drop in the bucket.

Before building the R&D center in Lion City, Lei Jun came to Suzhou to talk with Zheng Li. He felt that there was no need to invest so much to build an overseas R&D center.

"Junior brother, it is very common for pharmaceutical companies to build R&D bases overseas. Especially for scientific and innovative biotechnology, development cannot rely solely on endorphins."

"I can fully understand and support it. The research and development environment and various supporting facilities in Singapore are very good. In the future, Daimi may also set up a research and development base in Singapore."

"But it is not necessary to buy an office building. In the early stage, you can mainly rent an office building. Later, if the scale increases, you can consider buying or even building it yourself."

Lei Jun and Zheng Li now usually call each other brothers to show their closeness.

Zheng Li still holds 70% of the shares of Kechuang Bio and has absolute control over the company, while other shareholders only have advisory rights.

Lei Jun’s suggestion is typical of Internet thinking, which is to take small steps and make continuous iterations.

Zheng Li replied: "I plan to stay in Lion City in the future. Cheng Gang and Li Miaomiao are helping me look after the company. After the R&D base in Lion City is built, I will stay in Lion City. I have new research goals."

“The R&D base in Lion City will support the development of Sinovation Biotech over the next five years.”

Zheng Li's answer made Lei Jun curious. You know, it has been a year since Zheng Li started studying the industrial synthesis path of endorphins. He has no other output in this year and has not mentioned what he does in the laboratory in Gusu every day.

“If that’s the case, then I think there’s nothing wrong with the R&D base in Lion City.”

“But I’m still curious about what your research goals are?”

Zheng Li replied: "Brain-computer connection, I have been researching this direction for the past year. I have achieved some results and have some clues. I need to go to Singapore to verify my ideas."

"The reason why we have to go to Singapore is because it has a relatively rich ethnic group, and we need a sufficiently rich ethnic group to conduct experiments on brain-computer interfaces."

Compared to the relatively homogeneous yellow race in China, the Southeast Asian races are much more diverse.

Zheng Li continued to explain: "Moreover, different languages ​​will have different effects on people's consciousness. The same brain wave signal may express different meanings in different language systems."

Lei Jun was confused. He didn't understand what Zheng Li said. Most people don't know that language will affect your cognitive functions.

Zheng Li: “So I need to conduct more multi-dimensional experiments to revise my theory and my product.”

Zheng Li's statement was for external use. In fact, the reason why he wanted to go to Lion City was that he had made a breakthrough in the artificial magic brain.

Artificial magic brain is a very common technology in the Mage Alliance and is used by everyone, but it does not mean that he can make an artificial magic brain. He understands the principles behind it, but it takes time to replicate it.

Just like everyone in China who has received secondary education knows the principle of the steam engine, but if you throw it back to ancient times, it would probably not be so easy to reproduce the steam engine in the absence of tools.

Of course, this is just an analogy. In addition, America has blocked many top scientific research equipment from China.

There are as many as 4500 products on the American Control List, of which more than 40% are scientific research equipment needed for laboratories.

These scientific research equipment can be bought in Lion City, but not in China. This is also an important reason why Zheng Li wants to go to Lion City.

Another very important point is that even if an artificial magic brain was created, Zheng Li would not dare to use it on himself right away. He also needed a test subject to conduct the experiment.

Zheng Li’s statement to the public is that it is necessary to develop a brain-computer interface.

Lei Jun asked: "Are there any preliminary products that can be demonstrated now?"

Zheng Li took him to the laboratory on the seventh floor and handed him a black helmet. "Put it on and try to control the dots on the screen with your consciousness."

“Try it and imagine the dot on the screen as a mouse.”

Lei Jun was having a lot of fun looking at the black background and white dots on the screen.

Zheng Li continued: "You can try our little game."

After that, Zheng Li sat on the other side and put on a black helmet. He continued: "I control the white bar on the left, and you control the white bar on the right. This is a table tennis game."

"The white stripe is the paddle, and the white dot is the ping-pong ball. We can't let the white dot touch the black parts on either side."

Lei Jun nodded and said, "That's just like the first computer game ever created."

The first computer game was a table tennis game that was played by American scientists who were researching nuclear weapons when they were bored. They used a computer combined with an oscilloscope and controlled it with operating knobs - a spot of light bounced back and forth between two boards.

After playing around for a while, Zheng Li stood up and said, "Let's go."

Lei Jun was still a little reluctant:
"I will fully support you. You are truly a genius among geniuses."

Zheng Li said calmly: "The current brain-computer connection technology is still some distance away from maturity. In the days to come in Lion City, I will devote all my efforts to the research and development of brain-computer connection technology and make it commercialized as soon as possible."

Lei Jun asked: "Can brain-computer connection technology be applied to mobile phones?"

Zheng Li: "They are all mature API interface calling methods. Brain signals are converted into electronic signals. If they can connect to computers, they can also connect to mobile phones."

Lei Jun: "Da Mi is in a difficult situation recently. Don't be fooled by me. Da Mi has been established for nearly ten years, but it can only use its cost-effectiveness as its signature."

"We can't break through to the high-end market. Even today, Xiaomi still can't gain a foothold in the high-end mobile phone market."

Zheng Li didn’t understand the mobile phone industry, or rather, he didn’t understand Bluestar’s consumer goods industry: “What’s wrong with the price-performance ratio?”

"Rice comes from the perspective of cost-effectiveness. Why?" Zheng Li stopped talking halfway through his sentence.

His underlying meaning was that Xiaomi phones started out as value for money phones, so why do people now look down on value for money?

(End of this chapter)