Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 595 Quantum Chips that Challenge the Pinnacle of Human Technology
In December, with the mass shipment and delivery of Zhiyun Group's APO6000 graphics cards, a new wave of discussions on artificial intelligence swept the globe!

People are shocked to see those large high-tech companies throwing billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars into their businesses... Damn, these high-tech companies are genuinely rich and genuinely willing to spend money.

Soon, a statistical report circulated online, listing the investments or planned investments made by major global high-tech companies in the field of artificial intelligence.

At the top of the list is naturally the world's number one super-enterprise, Zhiyun Group!

Although Zhiyun Group has not disclosed details of its capital expenditures in the field of artificial intelligence, it is, after all, a listed company that regularly publishes financial reports and major business matters. Of course, most importantly, Zhiyun Group is watched by countless people around the world, and its various actions are subject to various public reports.

So people started collecting publicly available data, compiling statistics, and analyzing it, eventually arriving at a rather outrageous figure: $180 billion!

In the past year, Zhiyun Group's capital expenditure in the field of artificial intelligence, including algorithm research and development, AI training, operational support for commercial AI, and construction of computing centers, reached a staggering $180 billion!

The cost of building the computing center is the biggest expense, because many industry insiders know that Zhuyun Group uses more than half of its self-produced APO graphics cards... including the latest APO6000 graphics card, which everyone knows Zhuyun Group started mass production in the first half of the year, but only for its own use and not for external supply!

Over the past six months, all of the production capacity has been used by the Zhuyun Group itself, which is speculated to be at least one million APO6000 graphics cards. Based on the market price of an APO6000/120GB card, this batch alone is worth over 6000 billion US dollars!

Moreover, computing centers require more than just APO6000 graphics cards; they also need a large number of other devices. The final cost of a data center far exceeds this figure. It is speculated that this year, Zhiyun Group has invested at least hundreds of billions of US dollars in computing hardware.

In addition to the huge investment in hardware, Zhiyun Group also spends a lot on algorithm research and development and training in the field of artificial intelligence training!

Many AI researchers also enjoy very high salaries.

Furthermore, Zhiyun Group has too many artificial intelligence projects, constantly developing and training a large number of artificial intelligence models, which are also needed for intelligent robots and virtual devices.

The massive hardware expenditures and huge R&D costs have led to a staggering $180 billion in capital expenditures by Zhiyun Group in the field of artificial intelligence!

Of course, this data is just speculation from the outside world. As for how much money Zhiyun Group actually spent, it is actually a mess. Even Zhiyun Group's own finance department is not very clear about it. The main reason is that Zhiyun Group's artificial intelligence technology is deeply integrated into various business departments and has formed a strong connection. Many business departments' research and development involves artificial intelligence research and development.

For example, intelligent robots are based on artificial intelligence technology. Would you say that the R&D expenditure for intelligent robots is also considered R&D expenditure in the field of artificial intelligence?

Currently, in Zhiyun Group's financial statistics, these expenditures are classified as capital expenditures for intelligent robot projects and are not mixed with capital expenditures for artificial intelligence.

Because the application of artificial intelligence technology in Zhiyun Group is so extensive and in-depth, it is difficult to separate the research and development of artificial intelligence technology from other research and development in statistics.

In addition, in the hardware field, there are many other projects whose funding has been lumped into artificial intelligence research and development, such as the research and deployment of superconducting quantum computers, neuromorphic computer projects, and even some of the funding for Project X, all of which have been put into the big basket of artificial intelligence projects.

Artificial intelligence capital expenditure is a huge catch-all, containing a whole bunch of secret, unsavory projects from the Zhiyun Group!
Public financial reports will only tell you how much money Zhiyun Group spent on artificial intelligence projects, but they won't tell you exactly where the money was spent!
If any shareholders request detailed information about these projects, the board of directors, personally controlled by Xu Shenxue, will refuse to answer, citing the involvement of core corporate secrets!
Although Zhiyun Group's capital expenditures in the field of artificial intelligence are a mess and unclear!
Even so, according to external statistics, Zhiyun Group's capital expenditure in the field of artificial intelligence is still as high as $180 billion!

Far exceeding other top high-tech companies in the world
!

In the global AI spending report issued by the statistics agency, apart from Zhiyun Group, a special company, which topped the list.

Other high-tech companies also have rather staggering capital expenditures.

Google ranks second. According to publicly available information, Google invested nearly $20 billion in the field of artificial intelligence in the past year, and this figure is expected to increase dramatically next year, reaching more than $50 billion.

Secondly, there's Facebook, which also places great emphasis on the development of artificial intelligence and has announced that it will invest at least $100 billion in the field over the next three years.

Then there are companies like Microsoft, Tesla, Amazon, and fruit.

Next are a number of domestic high-tech companies, such as Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Yihai Technology, and Hailan Auto, all of which have invested heavily in research and development and deployment in the field of artificial intelligence. In addition to these four top-tier internet high-tech companies, other industrial companies like Huawei and other medium-sized internet companies have also made huge investments.

The reason why major high-tech companies are investing heavily in the field of artificial intelligence is because companies like Zhiyun Group and Hailan Auto have already set an example.

The core technologies of Zhiyun Group's booming new core businesses in recent years, namely intelligent robots and virtual devices, are all based on artificial intelligence technology.

Hailan Auto's L4-level autonomous driving technology is also based on artificial intelligence technology.

Other miscellaneous applications, not to mention those at the software level.

Zhiyun Group has already blazed a completely new trail... a trail that could potentially spark the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Other companies will naturally follow suit and copy its homework.

The only problem is that copying this homework is very difficult.

Of course, not all companies are ambitious enough to develop their own underlying core algorithms for artificial intelligence. Many companies simply do not develop their own underlying core algorithms, but instead directly use a large number of open-source artificial intelligence algorithm models from Zhiyun Group.

GTAI is also quite good; the latest version isn't much worse than Yun AI in terms of performance!

In addition to GTAI, Zhiyun Group has also open-sourced a large number of various artificial intelligence models and algorithms, many of which can be used in terminal fields such as robots.

For example, the ROB3 open-source robot algorithm released by Zhiyun Group last year can be used to develop robotic arms with various functions and achieve very precise robotic arm operations. Many so-called robot startups on the market actually use the ROB3 open-source algorithm as their underlying algorithm.

Of course, this does not mean that these startups lack technical content. In fact, Zhiyun Group only provides an open-source underlying model. These startups still need to train and optimize it themselves to meet product requirements.

This process of training and optimizing based on open-source algorithms before designing and manufacturing hardware involves a very high level of technology. To sell its APO6000 graphics cards, PX chips, LC chips, and other computing chips, Zhiyun Group has open-sourced a huge number of various artificial intelligence algorithms, which can be used freely by any company or individual worldwide.

The only requirement is that you have to use my computing chips, from APO graphics cards to PX chips, etc.

Of course, they have no choice but to use them, because these open-source algorithms only support Zhiyun Group's own YUDA architecture!

The fact that Zhiyun Group has made its underlying AI algorithms freely available to the world, along with its open supply of various computing chips, is a major reason why the global high-tech industry and even a large number of traditional manufacturing industries have rapidly transitioned to the AI ​​era.

This has led to a large number of companies making extravagant capital expenditures in the field of artificial intelligence!
Of these capital expenditures, a significant portion of the hardware expenditures ultimately ended up in the pockets of Zhiyun Group!
This has resulted in Zhuyun Group's revenue and profits in the computing chip field being quite staggering!

This year, the revenue generated by the computing chip business has exceeded 300 billion US dollars, while the gross profit is even more staggering, reaching a massive 240 billion US dollars, with a gross profit margin of over 80%!
Although the revenue from the computing chip business is slightly lower than that of the smart terminal business this year, it has officially replaced the smart terminal business in terms of profit and become the largest source of profit for Zhiyun Group!

Zhiyun Group sells computing chips, which is like making money while lying down... They sell all over the world, and there are no competitors. In fact, major customers are begging Zhiyun Group to sell them computing chips.

Due to the large-scale application of artificial intelligence globally, and the explosive growth in capital expenditure by major companies in the field of artificial intelligence, the revenue of Zhuyun Group's computing chip business has surged!
This has also driven a significant increase in the overall revenue of Zhuyun Group this year, which is expected to reach $880 billion, an increase of $100 billion compared to last year, with a very significant increase in profits.

Although Zhiyun Group has not yet released its financial report, many analysis and statistics agencies have already provided approximate figures, which has led to a continuous rise in Zhiyun Group's stock price.

In late December, Zhuyun Group's market capitalization in Hong Kong officially surpassed eight trillion US dollars and continues to rise!
It should be noted that since its listing, Zhuyun Group has only conducted a few share buybacks in the early years, and has not conducted any share buybacks in the last five years, nor has it ever distributed dividends.

Unlike many high-tech companies such as Apple and Google, which frequently engage in share buybacks to drive up stock prices, Google has bought back hundreds of billions of dollars worth of shares this year.

Fruit has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on share buybacks over the past decade.

Zhuyun Group does not repurchase shares or distribute dividends. Instead, it invests its profits in various miscellaneous R&D and capital expenditures, resulting in a low return on capital, which is a source of dissatisfaction for many investors!
This has also led to Zhuyun Group's relatively low price-to-earnings ratio over the long term...

After all, for shareholders who invest in capital, it's not enough for a company to just make money; you also need to do share buybacks or pay dividends. The money you make has to go to the shareholders so that they can make money!
If a company only makes money, but doesn't give that money to shareholders, but instead spends it all... that's a big problem for shareholders.

If Zhiyun Group had engaged in frequent share buybacks like Google and Apple, its market capitalization would have already exceeded ten trillion US dollars... But Zhiyun Group doesn't do that, and investors can't do anything about it!
Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

As global public opinion continues to buzz around the explosive growth in the field of artificial intelligence, the stock price of Zhiyun Group continues to rise.

At the end of December, Xu Shenxue went to Haiwan Technology, a subsidiary of Fairy Mountain Holdings. However, this time he did not come to see semiconductor equipment such as lithography machines, but to see the core manufacturing equipment for the new generation of superconducting quantum chips: the focused ion beam alignment machine.

Gulf Technology is responsible not only for the research and development of core equipment for semiconductor chips, but also for the research and development of core equipment for superconducting quantum chips.

Inside Gulf Technology, Wang Daolin pointed to a huge piece of equipment in front of him and said, "Chairman Xu, this is our fourth-generation 'quantum alignment machine' specifically designed for quantum chip manufacturing!"

"This quantum alignment machine is derived from focused ion beam equipment, but it is vastly different from traditional focused ion beam alignment machines!"

Even without Wang Daolin saying it, Xu Shenxue could see it... because the quantum alignment machine in front of him was huge... even bigger than an EUV lithography machine!
Just by being displayed here, you can feel the top-notch technology!
And this kind of top-precision machining equipment is the core embodiment of industrial capability...

"Technically, we continue to use the third-generation dual-technology mechanism of electron beam and ion beam, but we have carried out in-depth optimization to further improve the accuracy!"

"In terms of accuracy, we have achieved an offset of 20 nanometers, which is a qualitative improvement compared to the previous generation's 40-nanometer offset!"

"Most importantly, we have built a highly automated machine for the next generation of quantum alignment machines, which can achieve fully automated processing, unlike the previous semi-automatic processing mode that still required manual intervention!"

"With the assistance of ultra-high precision automated machines, we are able to achieve fully automated processing of the core 3D structure of quantum chips, improving the stability and precision of the processing and significantly increasing the yield."

Xu Shenxue looked at the enormous machine in front of him, then flipped through the simple report in his hand, and couldn't help but exclaim, "You guys have created a super-sized toy!"

At this moment, Wang Daolin said with a hint of pride, "This big toy is not cheap. It brings together the top technical strength of our entire group and even the whole country, and the cost is also very high. We supply Zhiyun Microelectronics with it. A single unit costs three hundred million US dollars, which is twice as expensive as an EUV lithography machine!"

Xu Shenxue said, "I'm not afraid of the price, what I'm afraid of is not having it. We still need the sixth-generation quantum chip!"

With this newly developed quantum alignment machine, the core technical problem that has plagued the sixth-generation quantum chip for so long can be considered solved... Next, the sixth-generation quantum chip will enter the tape-out stage, and once the tape-out is successful, small-scale production can begin!
Of course, its production volume will be very low... because the quantum chip technology developed by Zhiyun Group is too difficult.

The previous fifth-generation quantum chips were already very difficult to develop, and the current sixth-generation technology has increased the difficulty even further.

The sixth-generation quantum chip is a top-tier quantum chip with 100,000 controllable qubits, and its manufacturing difficulty challenges the pinnacle of current human manufacturing technology.

To date, Zhiyun Group has not been able to carry out large-scale industrial mass production, and can only maintain small-scale laboratory production with extremely limited annual output!
To put it dramatically, even if Zhiyun Group were to release all of its sixth-generation quantum chip technology now, no other company would be able to replicate it.

Because they can't build it!

Not only could they not manufacture it, they didn't even have the necessary manufacturing equipment and materials.

When Zhiyun Group was developing quantum chips, Fairy Mountain Holdings was simultaneously investing heavily in the equipment and consumables for the entire industry chain... Without Fairy Mountain Holdings providing top-notch equipment and consumables for the superconducting quantum chip industry chain, Zhiyun Group would have been like a skilled cook without rice, unable to produce anything at all.

Superconducting quantum chips are actually somewhat similar to electronic chips. Both are challenging the pinnacle of human technology in the field of micro-manufacturing, and the technical difficulty is extremely high.

(End of this chapter)