As a mage, I just want to pursue the truth

Chapter 384 Biophotovoltaics 2
“We need to realize that there is no absolute superiority or inferiority in technical routes.

Even though Singapore’s biophotovoltaic technology has advantages in all technical indicators, this does not mean that we have to give up our own photovoltaic industry.

Previously, foreign countries had comprehensive advantages in the semiconductor field, from cost to technical indicators to the degree of adaptability of the entire industrial chain, and were superior to China in all aspects.

China has never given up on supporting domestic semiconductor companies, although the support for these companies was not strong enough before 2018.

They are in a half-dead stage, but they will never give up their own industries just because other countries' products are better.

Because the relevant considerations are based on strategic security.

Judging from your ages, most of you have experienced the wave of localization of the semiconductor industry chain more than ten years ago."

“Professor Zhu has a point.

For us, it makes no sense for a business to survive by relying on policies.

Although he survived, neither his profits nor his revenue were within our investment considerations.

Not to mention that only the leading companies can survive relying solely on policies.

Small and medium-sized enterprises, especially those that saw the boom in the photovoltaic industry and launched a large number of related industrial chains but lacked technological and market advantages, are unlikely to survive this year.

“I know what you mean.

The companies that survive in this way have no investment value.”

“Yes, just like Tsinghua Unigroup, if they had not acquired H3C, even if the other party was a school-owned enterprise of Shuimu University, we would not consider investing in Tsinghua Unigroup-affiliated companies.

First they acquired H3C, and later caught up with the wave of semiconductor localization, which made it the focus of capital.

If it weren’t for the combination of these two factors, Unigroup Guoxin, a subsidiary of Tsinghua Unigroup, would not be the first semiconductor company to see a sharp rise.”

In the bull market in 2020, the first semiconductor company to start was Unigroup Guoxin, which moved along with the securities sector, a week earlier than other semiconductor companies.

Professor Zhu nodded, and after thinking for a moment, he said:
“Back to what I said before, there is no good or bad technical route.

In other words, there is no absolute distinction between good and bad.

It’s just that from an economic perspective, technical routes that have advantages in the early stages will be supported, while technical routes that do not have advantages will quickly disappear if there is no additional resource investment.

Resources are limited, and money is an amplifier for scientific research.

However, in reality, some technical routes that require little initial investment and have quick results may not be able to maintain this advantage in the later stages.

For example, silicon-based chips developed rapidly in the early stages, and the technology developed so rapidly that there is a special Moore's Law.

Costs double every two years, while prices drop by half.

From the perspective at that time, this was a very advantageous technical route.

As technology continues to develop, computer performance will become more and more advantageous.

How could anyone invest in a biological computer?
In addition to some scientific research.

For enterprises, biological computers have no advantages at all, either in terms of performance or cost.

But judging from biological storage and the recent emergence of virtual reality devices, biological computers seem to be a technology route with a higher ceiling.

With the current level of precision of traditional silicon-based chips, Moore's Law has become invalid.

But can we blame those who chose the carbon-based chip technology route at that time?

Can academia and industry be blamed for not investing more money in carbon-based chips?

No, because from the perspective at that time, no one would be willing to invest heavily in the research and development of carbon-based chips.

You may invest 100 billion US dollars and not see any substantial technological progress.”

As the number of transistors on a chip decreases, temperature and leakage are causing the development of silicon-based chips to become increasingly difficult.

In order to break this shackles, chip manufacturers have developed from planar to vertical stacking in recent years.

"Professor Zhu, I didn't expect you to know about the chip industry."

“Photovoltaic is also silicon wafers, and the semiconductor industry is also silicon wafers.

I understand it to some extent.”

"Do you think Chinese companies can really make photonic chips?"

Professor Zhu's eyes were much bigger than usual: "Which company has made the photonic chip?

Kechuang Biotech?

“No, it’s another listed company called **Chip. It was a laboratory product before. They made the world’s first photonic chip prototype card in 2019.

Recently, it was said that it had developed a photonic chip for personal use. As a result, just as the announcement was made, Ke Chuang Biotechnology launched a virtual reality device.

But after we researched this company, we felt that it still had investment potential.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not engaged in research in this field, and I don’t know much about photonic chips.

Based on my personal intuition, since it was not launched by Ke Chuang Biotechnology, there must be similar products abroad, and then we developed similar products as followers.

If we are pioneers, we need to be more cautious about the authenticity of things and find more angles to verify. "

American began research on photonic chips around 2015, and Chinese companies lagged behind by about three years.

On the eve of the launch of Chip Curtain in 18, Chinese companies gradually began to conduct research in this field.

The earliest investors were Baidu Venture Capital and an American semiconductor investment institution, who jointly invested 10 million US dollars. Later, CICC, Matrix Partners and Baidu participated in the A round of financing, raising 26 million US dollars.

If it weren't for the fall of Xinmu, this company would not have received so much investment.

In total, it has raised nearly 2 billion US dollars in financing. You should know that SenseTime only raised 2 billion yuan back then.

The company's stock price has been declining since its listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. Like SenseTime, its stock price reached its peak upon listing.

“The main reason is that this company already had products.

Then later, there were also photonic computing processors specifically for the enterprise side, specifically for algorithm calculations in the field of artificial intelligence.”

"That shouldn't be the case. If there really is such a processor, I should have heard of it in school.

This is still a domestic enterprise.

I often communicate with students from the School of Computer Science, so I have some idea of ​​which parts have been domestically produced.”

“Professor Zhu, basically, the photonic chips previously developed by this company are mainly targeted at specific neural network algorithms.

Only in these specific recurrent neural networks are they hundreds of times faster than high-end GPUs.

But its universality is not high enough.

So it may be used in some specific occasions.

If they can adapt to all occasions and be hundreds of times faster than mainstream high-end GPUs on the market, the company's price-to-earnings ratio should be several hundred, instead of the current less than fifty. "

“Are there similar photonic chips abroad that can adapt to all scenarios?”

"not yet."

“Then why were they able to come up with it before other countries?

I don't doubt the level of domestic enterprises.

It’s a chip scam, or to put it nicely, bragging, and we’ve seen it too many times.

Especially when it comes to so-called technological breakthroughs, I always question them first.

As for the development of science and technology, especially the most cutting-edge technological breakthroughs, it has never been strongly correlated with money or policy. It has been weakly correlated. "

"Yes, Professor Zhu, what you said makes a lot of sense.

In recent years, places such as Yanjing, Shenhai and Pengcheng have implemented a lot of relevant policy packages to promote investment in high-end and high-tech industries, and promote the high-end, green and intelligent development of manufacturing industries.

There are also future industrial highlands and industrial clusters around VR and 6G.

One set after another.

Why did Gusu become an industrial highland and an industrial cluster?

Even Gusu's GDP is catching up with Shenhai.

Whether it is new energy, biomedicine, artificial intelligence or the later VR, a large number of high-tech jobs are concentrated in Gusu.

Can Gusu compare with places like Shenhai in terms of policy advantages?

I wouldn’t have believed it before, but this company has a long history of research and development in the field of photonic chips.

With the emergence of the virtual world, photonic chips don’t seem so mysterious anymore.

After all, this is an industry that has been accumulated over many years.”

“I’m not completely ruling out the possibility.

It just means we need to be cautious.”

"Thanks to Professor Zhu, we may need to invite more experts in related fields to conduct research in the future to obtain more accurate results."

At this time, another fund manager said: "I don't think they will lie.

After all, it is a listed company. Although it has been making losses in recent years, it still has shares held by large funds.

They just might be exaggerating a bit.

Adapt to all scenarios, this may be a bit exaggerated.

In addition, we don’t need to look for experts, we can just ask people from other listed companies in the same industry.”

No matter what era or industry, competitors will always be enemies.

"Professor Zhu, we would like to ask you another question, which is, is it possible to replicate biophotovoltaic technology?
For example, they can purchase related products and then reverse engineer the specific technology.”

"I just want to ask you a question. Has any other manufacturer cracked the brain-computer connection technology that Kechuang Biotechnology developed ten years ago?"

"No.

But this is not because we can't crack it, but because there is a technical patent.

Kechuang Bio's solution is the best technical route.

Attempts to circumvent the other party’s technical solutions have failed to achieve their results.”

“What about Kechuang Biotechnology’s lithium metal cathode material?
Have you cracked it?

This is also technology from ten years ago.”

"That is because the material precision cannot be achieved."

“I think these technologies are what Bluestar has accumulated before, and they are within our understanding.

We have spent ten years and still haven't been able to reverse it.

Why do we think we can reverse engineer a technology route like biophotovoltaic technology, which is only heard of by insiders?
From what I know, I never thought that commercial biophotovoltaics could be achieved within ten years.

Not to mention seizing the traditional photovoltaic market.

At most, it can be used as a green embellishment or decoration in the homes of high-end people.

As a large-scale energy solution, there are too many technical constraints.”

In the past decade, China has caught up with foreign countries in many areas.

For example, traditional silicon-based chips can already be produced domestically across the entire 14nm industry chain.

For China, meeting this goal is already a strategic victory in the silicon screen.

America has imposed a blockade on China in high-tech industries such as semiconductors, but at the same time does not rule out continuing cooperation with China in the economic field.

This new form of confrontation has been likened by the media to the Silicon Curtain, an attempt to lock down China's development ceiling in the silicon-based chip field.

However, with the technology route determined, the role of money as a resource amplifier can be maximized. Combined with the massive supply of researchers, China will break through the 14nm blockade earlier than the industry expected.

The industry expected it to take fifteen years, but it was actually achieved in ten years.

要知道2020年的时候申海微电子的28nm光刻机屡屡跳票，当时说2021年交付，后来变成2022年，结果在2022年又推迟到了2023年的上半年。

The yield rate after delivery is limited and there are a lot of problems.

Moreover, the lithography machines produced by Shenhai Optoelectronics are not domestically produced, and many of them still rely on the supply of high-end materials from Neon.

As a result, in just seven years, China has achieved national production of 14nm chips.

This was a huge shock to American, and at that time there was a serious suspicion within American that an insider had leaked their technical information.

So much so that a new wave of McKinseyism emerged within America.

Under such circumstances, it is even more impossible for Luo Shu to return to China.

At one point, America even rejected all Chinese international students majoring in science and engineering.

You should know that even for international students majoring in science and engineering, many master's programs are simply set up to generate income for the university.

The money earned is from Chinese students studying abroad.

After these students were banned from going to America, the largest destination was England.

It is also thanks to America that it gave England a piece of the pie in the education industry. Otherwise, London, having lost its international financial business, would have to go through government bankruptcy and reorganization.

"There is another thing I want to trouble you with. My son is graduating from graduate school this year, and he has always wanted to work in the financial industry.

He has a bachelor's and master's degree in finance from Guanghua School of Management. Can you provide some internship positions for my son?

Whether he will have a chance to become a regular employee depends on his ability.”

Although Professor Zhu is a professor, he is not an academician after all, and his resources are still limited.

At the same time, the financial industry has been in a recession in recent years, and there is a shortage of money in the market, resulting in particularly fierce employment in the financial industry.

For a family like Professor Zhu's that cannot provide direct monetization resources, it would be difficult for his son to find a department of the same level even if he graduated from Guanghua University.

At this time, internship experience is very important.

The fund managers present were all from top domestic private equity institutions, and it was for this purpose that Professor Zhu accepted the invitation.

However, Professor Zhu only wants his son to go for an internship. As for final employment, he still hopes that he can work in the core departments of CICC headquarters.

"Okay, please send me your resume via WeChat later, and I'll have our HR department handle it when I get back.

Internship is a piece of cake.

If you want to become a regular employee later, it will be a matter of a word from you."

The group exploded and my secondary account was blocked. I will create a new group to inform everyone after it is unblocked.



(End of this chapter)