The Birth of Shanghai's First Conglomerate

Chapter 696 University of Science and Technology
In November, Tencent Pictures announced two major events, one of which was the development of the Tengfei AI search engine.

I've become a colleague of Baidu (the Chinese search engine).

Another development is Xiaoteng Online, which includes intelligent voice chat, search, Q&A, and a series of basic public services.

All of these projects are based on AI algorithms, which also marks that Tengfei AI has entered a new era.

Although profitability is still a long way off, it is clear that it can already serve the general public through existing AI development technologies.

On November 4th, Chen Pingsheng accompanied Shanghai No. 1 to visit the Tengfei AI Industrial Science and Technology New Area, which has been built with an investment of over 30 billion yuan.

A single brand name can be used to define a new science and technology zone.

This demonstrates just how powerful the brand is. With an annual investment of over 40 billion yuan in R&D, Tengfei AI is no joke.

The technological content involved is unmatched by traditional industries of the past.

Anyone familiar with AI knows that everything is based on chips, including computing power.

The Tengfei AI model has completely replaced traditional painting, writing, and intelligent search engines.

The reason why the Tengfei phone has not yet been released is that the integrated Tengfei AI system is not yet perfect.

It is unlikely to be launched until late 2025.

However, in addition to developing a series of internet AI smart software, they have also developed a home smart assistant, Xiao Teng Online.

There are also two smart robots, one of which is a home hygiene robot.

Its main function is cleaning, and another product is the Xiaoteng No. 1, which replaces the existing assembly line production.

Xiaoteng No.1 has been under development for over three years and is expected to be released in the first half of 2025, and will officially enter mass production.

Xiao Teng No. 1 was developed entirely based on Tengfei's existing super factory. Even Chen Pingsheng, after seeing this robot, had to sigh and say that the cruelest era for working people was really coming.

Xiaoteng No. 1 will completely replace more than 80% of the ordinary assembly line workers in the super factory, which also means that Tengfei Group will have to lay off at least 10,000 people by 2025.

Once Xiaoteng No.1 is fully stable and the factory is fully intelligent, it is estimated that Tengfei Super Factory will lay off nearly 100,000 employees before 2027.

Most of the assembly line work will be assigned to intelligent robots.

Such a robot, besides having an incredibly high research and development cost, also...

The production cost of a single Tengfei No. 1 robot is only between 50,000 and 80,000 yuan.

Based on current labor costs, the cost can be recovered in four months.

In the later stages, they were all free labor.

This will undoubtedly save companies a great deal of production costs.

This also means that there is still room for Tengfei New Energy Vehicles to further reduce costs.

And this space is still extremely large.

To put it even more dramatically, the Longteng S700 might sell for over 200,000 yuan in the future, with huge profits to be made.

This was a bolt from the blue for all our peers.

If he really sells the Longteng S700, a pure electric vehicle with solid-state batteries, for around 200,000 yuan, it will be difficult for other models besides Tesla to compete with him at this price point.

This is why, once self-developed technology takes off, it can be a huge blow to small businesses, including manufacturing industries with little technological content.

Most importantly, there are not many restrictions in this industry.

Unlike Alibaba selling vegetables or celebrities live-streaming e-commerce, they won't be looked down upon by outsiders.

It was even stopped by higher authorities.

Once self-developed technologies are established, their destructive power will be absolutely beyond imagination.

Without a doubt, Tengfei AI, including Tengfei Battery, Tengfei New Energy Vehicles, and the Tengfei AI smartphone with an investment of over 160 billion yuan, which is confirmed to be released in the second half of 2025, is already racing ahead on this path.

According to statistics, in the past five years, Tengfei Group has expanded into areas including batteries, automobiles, AI, and mobile phones.

At least 500 billion yuan was spent on research and development.

In the future, at least 1200 billion yuan will be spent on research and development every year, which is why the Tengfei Group is now incredibly strong.

Established for over eight years, Tengfei Group still reports huge losses in its annual consolidated financial statements.

It's just that Tengde Times, including Tengfei New Energy Vehicles, has independent accounting for its finances, which is why two of the companies have already achieved profitability.

Even if all of them were included, we would still lose tens of billions every year.

Chen Pingsheng has enough Nvidia and Microsoft shares in his hands, so he is not in a hurry to make a profit within two or three years.

His goal has always been to become a global technology giant.

Replacing manpower with Tengfei No. 1 intelligent robots is also to enable Tengfei Auto's products to truly establish themselves globally.

Besides, even if he doesn't eliminate human labor, those big foreign companies will still use technology to eliminate human labor.

He has invested over 10 billion in R&D centers worldwide, and to date, he has 28 such centers.

There are countless super factories.

In the early stages, the advantages may not be obvious, and the group's operating costs may be huge.

Now things are different. With the development of more and more patented technologies, Tengfei Group has completely surpassed the former Tengying Group.

He himself has now become one of the most influential figures in the technology field, and all of this has also made An'an and Erpiya true heiresses in Shanghai.

After the visit, the person he knew, known as the "Number One in Shanghai," even held a special research conference for the Tengfei Group in Shanghai.

The goal is probably to get more people, including more media outlets, to pay attention to this tech giant that has the potential to become a leading force in the domestic market.

The current Tengfei Group does not have a particularly prominent reputation.

The main reason is that its publicity strategy has always been very conservative, and it has not utilized its subsidiaries, including Tencent Entertainment and Tencent Media.

Another major reason is that there are still too few products.

It mainly consists of new energy vehicles.

Although it has become the top-selling car brand in China, its brand awareness is still not as widespread as that of mobile phones, which are ubiquitous.

Outsiders are unaware that its technological sophistication has reached such an astonishing level.

The real surprise for Tengfei Group will definitely come next year when they release the Tengfei AI phone.

Unlike traditional home appliance giants, they had prepared for this for many years and were confident of success.

It's not that there's absolutely no possibility of failure, but rather that we try our best to avoid failure.

To ensure instant success, they delayed the release for at least a year, which consumed an astronomical amount of money.

For the successful launch of the Longteng S700, he awarded a total of 3 billion yuan in bonuses to the Longteng series R&D team.

This was all paid for with his own money. One good thing about him as a boss is that he's generous.

As long as the R&D is strong and the team is capable.

The money you can get from him is definitely not comparable to what you can get elsewhere.

He solved the housing problem for all the top R&D teams in Shanghai.

In addition, each person will receive a prize ranging from a minimum of one million to a maximum of tens of millions.

When he returned to the company, Tang Jing told him that the 24 year-end bonus plan had been finalized.

Let's leave aside the traditional sectors and stick to the previous standards.

His wife's company also leaves most of the profits to its employees.

This year, both the cars and batteries were launched on the market, making it his most profitable year yet.

If we only consider this year's investment returns, it would be at least over 60 billion US dollars.

After briefly reviewing the year-end bonus plan, Chen Pingsheng secretly made a big decision.

He decided to allocate another two billion US dollars as a separate reward for the R&D engineers at Tengde Times, including Tengfei New Energy.

In addition to the R&D team, the management team also received a separate bonus of $500 million. Only R&D engineers, including top scientists, can truly demonstrate the value of education.

For this kind of job, those below the graduate level aren't even qualified to submit their resumes.

Offering 160 billion as bonuses is simply unbelievable to other companies.

This is perfectly normal within Tengfei Group.

His boss doesn't have much technical skill, but he's definitely the most generous when it comes to paying people.

At least 90% of the employees of the Ascendas Group are millionaires.

The fact that there aren't millions yet is simply because they haven't been involved for very long.

Nowadays, housing prices are so high that even in cities as strong as Shanghai, they are struggling to recover.

Chen Pingsheng has once again set aside over 10 billion US dollars to acquire land and build buildings in three more top-tier cities.

He didn't build the building to make a profit; he simply wanted to reduce the development costs.

Diluting more of the housing bubble will allow top engineers at Tengfei Group to afford housing in first-tier cities.

If people with such high levels of education and income can't afford to buy a house, then all this reinforced concrete will truly become a joke.

He simply invested in advance; there was no loss involved.

Therefore, he doesn't include this kind of money in his household expenses.

When November was halfway through, the year-end bonuses from Tengfei Group were announced.

It truly shocked the entire industry. What a joke! After so many years of supporting new energy in China, we haven't seen many companies with profits exceeding 16 billion yuan a year.

Tengfei New Energy, including Tengde Times, had its top boss personally withdrawing over 16 billion yuan in bonuses.

If we include the several other large bonuses issued during the year, the total bonuses paid out by the head of the Everbright Group in 2024 exceeded 20 billion yuan.

Who wouldn't like a boss like that?

Anyone who didn't know better would think that Tengfei New Energy Vehicles made a lot of money and had high profits in a year.

In reality, it's just that Chen Pingsheng made too much money. Tengfei New Energy Vehicles' total sales in 2023 reached 286 million units.

By 2024, the number had reached 312 million units.

A remarkable achievement, ranking first in the country and eighth in the world.

This marks the first time in seventy years that China's domestic automobile industry has entered the world's top ten in sales.

Such excellent results naturally led to a surge in stock price.

Sales have indeed increased, but profit margins are still somewhat low.

The main problem is the persistently high R&D costs, which have amounted to more than 30 billion yuan annually over the past few years.

This is not the sum of Tengfei's total expenses; it is only the R&D expenses of the automotive sector.

Even so, the net profit still exceeded 20 billion.

After so many years of losses, the new energy vehicle industry is finally seeing some profits.

The profits of Tengde Times are no less than 140 billion.

He personally received eight billion from dividends from these two companies alone.

It's not as much as what he makes from stock market investments, but it's a steady, long-term income.

More importantly, he has been spending a lot of money to continuously buy back shares of his own company, Ascendas Group.

These sectors have the highest revenue.

It is believed that it will not be long before Tengde Times, including Tengfei New Energy Vehicles, will be able to reach a market value of one trillion yuan in China.

Then he will be the tycoon who owns two trillion-dollar companies.

In late November, Chen Pingsheng again promoted the sale of 0.5% of Nvidia's stock.

He believes that a market capitalization exceeding three trillion is already quite high.

It will be difficult to achieve significant growth in the future.

It's far more reliable to cash out the money now and invest it in your own company.

After cashing out another $16 billion, the company used $10 billion to acquire land in three other top-tier cities to build high-end talent communities for its Tengfei Group, and the rest was used to repurchase shares of its own Tengfei Auto and Tengde Times in the secondary market.

Over the years, through various financial maneuvers, he has made more and more money, to an unbelievable degree.

After this buyback, his shareholding in both companies will be around 35%.

The money was used to build the buildings to ensure that the group's R&D talents could enjoy the best housing.

This is one of the essential benefits of working for a tech giant.

In addition, in late November, both the Group's Research Department and Chen Pingsheng himself believed that...

They now have the qualifications to establish their own top-tier university.

This is fundamentally different from Tengying Management Academy, which has an investment of over 20 billion yuan.

Chen Pingsheng decided to spend 18 billion US dollars to acquire a plot of land in Jinshan that was over 2,500 acres in size.

We are building our own Future Science and Technology University.

The main professional technologies involved include AI, the automotive industry, the mobile phone industry, and a series of professional disciplines such as the electronics industry.

They will only recruit top-tier geniuses from the entire society.

Not only do these people have priority access to the Tengfei Group after graduation, but more importantly, they receive a monthly study allowance while still in school.

Most importantly, Tengfei Group needs to recruit young talents from all over society.

To comprehensively improve the group's basic technology architecture and talent model.

This is highly beneficial for Takeoff's future growth into a world-class technology giant.

Many companies, even if they have such ideas, cannot implement them because they lack the necessary funds.

The Tengfei Group is different; Chen Pingsheng can easily come up with hundreds of billions of yuan.

$180 billion, which is roughly 1200 billion yuan, is enough to build the best university in the world.

Of course, this refers to universities in terms of both hardware and software facilities.

To truly become a world-class science and technology university, it must first accumulate a solid foundation.

Having funds alone is not enough; fortunately, we have the support of the entire Tengfei Group in this regard.

It will be completed sooner or later.

Moreover, Chen Pingsheng doesn't need to rely on alumni donations like other universities; he can guarantee that the university has no less than 10 billion yuan in project research and development funds every year.

We didn't dare to establish this kind of university before because the conditions weren't right.

Now things are different; Tengfei Group has fully developed.

It also received strong support from the entire city of Shanghai.

He is also personally funding domestic technology development, aiming to penetrate the global market.

This is fundamentally different from the internet economy.

No matter how well the internet economy develops, it still benefits the domestic circulation.

The internet has thrived, but the real economy has collapsed.

Only the technology industry has no ceiling; all other industries require certain restrictions.

Happy New Year.

My new book, "Reborn in 93: My Family's Daily Life in a Wealthy Family," has been released. If you like it, please support it!



(End of this chapter)