Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 606 Spaceport Project

Xu Shenxue was quite busy in March, with many things to do.

Yihai Technology is continuing to push for its IPO, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, it is expected to go public in September of this year. He needs to keep an eye on this.

Weiku Industry is currently developing its sixth base plan, building a super-large production base in Dongcheng, which is expected to directly employ more than 250,000 people. Including the various supply chain companies that come with it, the total number of employees is expected to exceed 400,000.

This production base will be used to manufacture virtual devices and intelligent robots for the Zhiyun Group. Once fully completed, it will become the world's largest production base for virtual devices and intelligent robots.

Hailan Automotive Group is accelerating the expansion of solid-state battery production capacity in order to realize the full adoption of solid-state batteries in its electric vehicles as soon as possible, which will greatly improve range and safety performance.

Furthermore, in the future, as the production capacity of solid-state batteries continues to increase, after meeting its own needs, Hailan Auto will gradually sell solid-state battery power packs to friendly cooperative enterprises.

Meanwhile, Hailan Automotive Group is also painstakingly developing intelligent robot technology, attempting to become the second intelligent robot company in human history.

In the future, Hailan Automotive Group will be a comprehensive high-tech intelligent mobility enterprise integrating the sales of intelligent robots, intelligent electric vehicles, various solid-state batteries, LiDAR and other automotive parts!
Yes, Hailan Automotive Group, although it carries the name of an automotive company, has never considered itself a purely automotive enterprise.

They even considered changing the name from Hailan Automobile Group to Hailan Group.

In late March, Xu Shenxue stayed at Nanmen Aerospace on Qiongzhou Island. Nanmen Aerospace has been quite active recently!
Nanmen Aerospace is continuing to push forward with its lunar base plan. In order to serve the lunar base plan, it has decided to expand its Centaur commercial space station and has also planned a lunar space station plan, intending to further expand the existing Sirius unmanned space station on the moon and build it into a manned space station.

Regular travel between Earth and the Moon requires not only the Yutu series interplanetary spacecraft, but also the support of Earth space stations and lunar space stations. The Yutu interplanetary spacecraft alone cannot sustain this!
Therefore, expansion and the construction of two space stations became inevitable. In the future, Nanmen Space plans to gradually expand the Centaurus space station on Earth into a super-large space station similar to the concept of a spaceport, for various scientific research experiments, supporting the operation of interstellar spacecraft, and other space activities.

This is the 'Space Airport Project' that Nanmen Aerospace has been planning for a long time.

However, this mega-spaceport plan is a long-term plan. In the short term, Nanmen Aerospace's goal is simply to enable these two space stations to support the Yutu interplanetary spacecraft... In short, it is to provide fuel and supplies for the Yutu interplanetary spacecraft and serve as a transit station for personnel or cargo.

Once the expansion plans for the two space stations are completed, the Yutu interplanetary spacecraft technology is further improved, and some technical problems of the lunar base are better resolved, Nanmen Aerospace will launch a large-scale lunar base project!
The ultimate goal is to mine helium-3 on the moon, refine it initially, and then transport it back to Earth.

Moreover, the timeline is quite tight... because the Xinghai-1 controlled nuclear fusion prototype is expected to be completed within three years, and Xinghai-1 uses helium-3 as fuel. The lunar base needs to be coordinated with the Xinghai-1 project's progress... We can't have controlled nuclear fusion achieved by then, only to find ourselves severely lacking fuel!

There is very little helium-3 on Earth. It is said that the total reserves on the Earth's surface are only a few hundred kilograms. The scarcity of the quantity makes mining and refining extremely difficult and costly. Each gram costs around 20,000... not a ton, not a kilogram, but a gram!
Because mining and refining helium-3 on Earth is too difficult and extremely costly, it's only feasible to refine a small amount for experiments at a huge initial cost. It's impossible to use it for large-scale commercial power generation in the long term: it would be a huge loss!

Moreover, for large-scale commercial power generation, there isn't that much Helium-3 available on Earth... you can't buy it even if you have the money.

The situation is different on the moon. Scientists estimate that the lunar surface soil contains at least millions of tons of helium-3, and the distribution of helium-3 on the moon is not uniform; some places have a lot, while others have very little. This means that Nanmen Aerospace could find a helium-3 rich mining area on the moon for extraction!
Currently, the lunar exploration team under Nanmen Aerospace is launching a large number of unmanned probes to the moon and searching for helium-3 mineral deposits all over the world. In the first quarter of this year alone, Nanmen Aerospace has sent more than 100 probes of various types to the moon.

Last year, Nanmen Space sent at least 500 probes of various kinds to the moon!
If this data were released, it would be terrifying... Other countries' so-called lunar exploration is all small-scale and stingy, but Nanmen Aerospace has sent hundreds of them over, and the number is still increasing.

Nanmen Space is able to send a large number of various probes to the moon because their costs are extremely low...

With the availability of inexpensive reusable rockets and space shuttles, especially the Long March 7 rocket, Southgate Aerospace's commercial launch costs have dropped to as low as $300 per kilogram. Moreover, with mass production and large-scale use, the cost continues to decline... It is estimated that in a few years it may even drop to around $200 per kilogram.

The large-scale mass production of the detectors also resulted in very low costs.

Then there's the Yutu interplanetary spacecraft, which serves as a means of transportation between Earth and the Moon. This mode of transportation, while requiring a huge initial investment compared to launching rockets directly from Earth to transport probes to the Moon, is much cheaper in the long run... After all, the Yutu-1 interplanetary spacecraft is designed for long-term and repeated use.

Driven by the commercialization plan of lunar bases, Nanmen Aerospace has transformed rockets, satellites, lunar probes, and other equipment that were previously considered high-tech in the aerospace field into mass-produced industrial products, resulting in a significant reduction in costs.

Without special restrictions, the cost of industrial products will drop at an astonishing rate once they are mass-produced!

Chips are a prime example... The APO6000 GPU core is undoubtedly the most complex and advanced industrial product that humans can design and manufacture to date. The chip, composed of hundreds of billions of transistors, is like a colossal megacity when magnified!

To manufacture it, you would need a top-tier semiconductor factory with an investment of at least tens of billions of dollars!

However, the cost of this GPU core is only a few thousand dollars... The reason is simply because of large-scale industrial production!

While Nanmen Aerospace's commercial rockets, space shuttles, satellites, and probes are technologically complex and belong to the highest level of technology, they are, at the very least, industrial products...

If production volume is large enough, average costs will drop rapidly.

Rocket engines are a prime example... In the past, rocket engines in the aerospace field cost millions of dollars, but when Southgate Aerospace first started developing reusable rockets, it reduced the cost of these engines to a few hundred thousand dollars.

By the time the current Long March 7 and Long March 8 rockets were developed, the Bifang C-type engines they used cost only around a few hundred thousand US dollars per unit, which was very cheap...

Furthermore, this cost is continuously decreasing as production continues to increase. If this continues, the cost of a single Bifang C-type engine may even be reduced to below $100,000.

Most importantly, this engine is reusable... it can be used more than thirty times, so the average cost per use is even lower!

Similar changes are happening in other fields as well. A lunar probe used on the moon may cost several hundred million dollars... but most of the cost is for research and development, and the actual cost is not very high after large-scale mass production.

With mass production of hundreds or even thousands of units, Nanmen Aerospace can keep the average cost down to a very low level.

Large-scale production and use are the core reasons for the significant reduction in the cost of Nanmen Aerospace's various aerospace activities!

While other space agencies or companies were still spending thousands of dollars per kilogram on launches, and lunar exploration was still costing only a few dollars per kilogram, Nanmen Space only spent two or three hundred dollars per kilogram on launches. They launched tens of thousands of satellites on Earth and hundreds or thousands of lunar probes, and even built a lunar satellite network!

Nanmen Aerospace has managed to turn aerospace activities into a large-scale industry...

Under such circumstances, Xu Shenxue's team of scientists had calculated in detail that even though the lunar base project was extremely expensive, in the end, its cost was still much cheaper than refining helium-3 directly on Earth!
Ultimately, the cost of generating electricity through controlled nuclear fusion will be significantly reduced!
Xinghai Energy estimates that the power generation cost of Xinghai No. 1 will be controlled at around 0.3 yuan per kilowatt-hour in the future, which is somewhat different from the current cost of nuclear power and thermal power, but roughly the same.

However, this is only the initial cost. As more and more controlled nuclear power plants are built and the industrial chain for lunar helium-3 mining matures and expands, the average cost of the entire controlled nuclear fusion industrial chain will continue to decrease.

If the research and development costs of Xinghai-3 can be reduced in the future, the overall power generation cost will be further reduced.

Scientists at Xinghai Energy predict that the cost of controlled nuclear fusion power generation in the future could be reduced to less than 0.1 yuan per kilowatt-hour, roughly the same as, or even lower than, the cost of hydropower.

Most importantly, controlled nuclear fusion units are safer, easier to build, require less investment, and have a shorter construction period. In theory, you could simply place the Xinghai-1 unit anywhere and it would generate electricity directly, without needing a large-scale, much more expensive dedicated power plant.

This means that expanding the supply of electrical energy is easier!
And this is very important!
Because power plants are part of infrastructure, traditional hydroelectric power stations and nuclear power plants are long-cycle projects. From construction to grid connection, a few years is considered short. Many large-scale projects take more than ten years.

If a controlled nuclear fusion device like Xinghai-1 were used to build a power plant, it could be developed in two or three years.

Even if you don't care about the details, theoretically you could just build a large factory, stuff a Starsea-1 supercomputer inside, and it would generate electricity directly without worrying about the danger of nuclear leakage.

Moreover, the power generation capacity is not small. The Xinghai-1 experimental unit alone can generate up to one million kilowatts. If eighteen Xinghai-1 units are combined to form a controlled nuclear fusion power plant, its power generation capacity can reach the level of the Three Gorges Dam.

Xinghai Energy Technology's controlled nuclear fusion project has many advantages, including safety, high efficiency, large power generation, and low power generation cost. These characteristics are the key reasons why Xu Shenxue is determined to promote the controlled nuclear fusion project and the accompanying lunar helium-3 mining project.

During his time at Nanmen Aerospace, Xu Shenxue witnessed several launches of the Long March 7 rocket!
With the successful commissioning of the Long March 7 rocket, it has officially replaced the Long March 5 and Long March 6 rockets, becoming the main rocket of Nanmen Aerospace. Nanmen Aerospace has officially stopped production of the Long March 5 and Long March 6 rockets, and the existing Long March 5 and Long March 6 rockets will continue to be used until they reach the end of their service life and are scrapped or used once.

The engine and rocket factories under Nanmen Aerospace are currently producing the Long March 7 rocket, and the Bifang C-type engine used in it is being mass-produced using an assembly line model.

However, Xu Shenxue stayed at Nanmen Aerospace for many days not just to see the No. 7 rocket, but mainly to wait for the first flight test of the No. 8 rocket!

Nanmen Aerospace began developing the Long March 8 rocket many years ago, but the technical difficulty of this rocket is higher than that of the Long March 7 rocket... After all, this is a behemoth with a maximum takeoff weight of 8,000 tons and a near-Earth payload capacity of 230 tons!

Not only is it large, but it's also a reusable rocket. So despite its size, its launch cost per kilogram is actually similar to that of the Long March 7 rocket, estimated at around two to three hundred US dollars per kilogram. The Long March 8 rocket is a crucial tool for the Southgate Space Lunar Base project. Many of the anticipated large-tonnage and bulky equipment and components will rely on this behemoth to send them into space.

In particular, some of the core components or equipment expected to be used in the airport project and the lunar base are massive pieces that can easily weigh tens of tons.

While such a massive machine, weighing tens of tons, could be launched using the single-use launch mode of the Long March 6 or Long March 7 rockets, the launch cost of the single-use mode is too high.

Using the Long March 8 rocket would allow for a reusable system, reducing launch costs to around $200-$300 per kilogram.

In particular, the engineers at Nanmen Aerospace designed a core component for the future Earth spaceport that weighs 200 tons... This behemoth can only be sent into space using the single-use mode of the No. 8 rocket.

This is what makes the Long March 8 rocket so important!
A few days later was also the day of the maiden flight of the No. 8 rocket, so Xu Shenxue has been staying at Nanmen Aerospace recently to personally oversee the relevant work for the maiden flight of the No. 8 rocket.

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.

Xu Shenxue, who works at Nanmen Aerospace, is quite busy every day. In addition to handling many affairs at Nanmen Aerospace, he also needs to handle many affairs of other companies under its umbrella.

In April, Xu Shenxue held an online meeting with Zhiyun Group to hear about the progress of their virtual equipment business.

At its spring launch event in March, Zhiyun Group released a brand-new generation of virtualization equipment, especially the Yun VW L2 model, which offers excellent value for money and is priced at only 260,000 RMB in China… The sales volume of this model will directly determine the overall sales volume of virtualization equipment this year!
Since the L1 model was officially launched last year, the L series virtual machines accounted for about 80% of the total sales of virtual machines. Then there was more than 10% of the M series, which sold more than 400,000 units. As for the models that sold more than 800,000 units, their sales share was actually very low.

For example, the Yun VW S4 flagship model, which Xu Shenxue touted loudly at the spring launch event, has many impressive features, but its actual sales are very low, with only a few thousand orders received so far!

As for why, well, why else? Because this device costs 3.8 million yuan in China... and the price would be even higher in other countries overseas.

For example, in the United States, this equipment, including shipping costs, taxes, operating costs and profits of local leasing and sales companies, would cost around 6.5 million in a perpetual lease model... It's very expensive.

It's relatively cheaper in Europe, but it still costs over five million... After all, overseas sales involve additional tariffs, local administrative and sales costs, and a whole host of other expenses.

Aside from tariffs, the more developed a country is, the higher this additional cost actually is... because the local wage level is high, and the corresponding operating costs will also rise accordingly.

This explains why items that cost ten dollars to produce can often fetch tens or even hundreds of dollars at local retailers in the United States. Don't assume that local businesses are making several times the profit; they're quite competitive. If you sell at a high price, other businesses will naturally try to steal your business.

The reason for such a huge difference between the purchase price and the retail price is that tariffs must be added... and their own high operating costs and marketing expenses must also be added, which makes it expensive.

After factoring in all these costs and setting a reasonable profit margin, the product purchased from Huaxia for ten yuan ends up retailing for tens or even hundreds of yuan... This situation is very common for low-priced products.

The increase in high-priced costs is not that large, but it is normal for it to be tens of percentage points.

Therefore, Zhiyun Group's products are always the cheapest in China because there aren't as many miscellaneous additional costs in China.

Overseas, prices are higher, and if we disregard tariffs, the more developed the region, the higher the price... because Zhiyun Group's own operations or local distributors have to factor in the additional high costs in the local area!
Virtual devices are typically marked up by several tens of percent in overseas markets. For example, the S series, which costs over three million, can easily sell for five or six million overseas. Naturally, such expensive products have very low sales volumes.

The top-selling models for virtual equipment are the L series (over 200,000 units) and the M series (over 400,000 units). These two models account for over 96% of the total sales of virtual equipment, with the L series accounting for 80% of that.

It is clear that the sales volume of virtual equipment this year will largely depend on the sales of newly released L2 models.

The reports Xu Shenxue is receiving in online meetings now indicate that sales are still quite good!
L2 has received 800,000 orders globally, and orders are still increasing rapidly, with total orders expected to exceed 3 million or even more for the year.

This put Xu Shenxue at ease a lot!
This year's virtual device business is considered stable, and this is very important!

Virtual devices have gradually become an important source of revenue and profit for Zhiyun Group.

Although the profit margin of virtual devices themselves is not high, the total volume is still relatively large. Even if the gross profit margin is low, it can still provide a considerable amount of profit.

More importantly, virtual devices have largely adopted APO graphics cards with mature technology... and the virtual device business unit gets its supplies from Zhiyun Semiconductor at market prices, at most with an internal discount.

So, while the Virtual Devices Business Unit doesn't make much money, the adjacent Zhiyun Semiconductor Division is making a fortune!
Besides Zhiyun Semiconductor being able to make huge profits from semiconductor chips such as APO graphics cards, ZY chips, X gaming graphics cards, CPUs, and storage chips.

This has also led to the development of the entire virtual ecosystem, and Zhuyun Group is able to obtain sufficient revenue from virtual content.

Zhiyun Virtual Mall takes a revenue share and also offers advertising services.

Taking Magic Blade as an example, if the game has a recharge amount of 10 billion, then Zhiyun Group can extract 30% of it as a channel commission, which is 3 billion.

It's not just the Magic Blade; currently, all virtual games and other virtual content running on Zhiyun virtual devices, except for a few supported content with a lower revenue share of 15%, all other virtual content, especially virtual games, have to give Zhiyun 30% of the revenue.

Smart Cloud Tax, that's world-renowned too...

In addition, in order to maintain its popularity and attract new customers, Magic Light Blade has been advertising in the virtual mall, a virtual content download software, for a long time. It also advertises in the 'Virtual World' built into the Zhiyun virtual device system, from which Zhiyun Group can obtain a lot of revenue.

Software and internet revenue is also one of the important sources of income for Zhiyun Group, and the emergence of virtual devices has greatly increased this part of the revenue... mainly because the recharge amount of virtual games is too high. These days, people who can afford to play virtual games are not short of money. To have a good time, recharging tens of thousands of yuan is commonplace, and many people even recharge hundreds of thousands or millions of yuan!

Otherwise, do you think major internet companies are just sitting around doing nothing, rushing to invest huge sums in developing virtual games? It's because virtual games are far more lucrative than traditional console games, PC games, and mobile games!

Although the virtual game market has only been around for a little over two years, according to statistics from analysis agencies, it has already reached a scale of 200 billion yuan and is still growing rapidly. It is expected to surpass the market size of mobile games within three years.

Although Zhiyun Group does not produce virtual game content itself, it can still carve out a huge slice of the pie just by collecting channel fees.

The current business model of Zhiyun Group's virtual equipment is that the hardware of virtual equipment does not make much money, with a gross profit margin of only about 20%. For a company like Zhiyun Group that has always focused on high-margin products, this gross profit margin is actually very low.

The main reason is that in order to promote the development of the virtual market and increase the stock of virtual devices as quickly as possible, Zhuyun Group initially took a strategy of not making money and keeping prices as low as possible.

However, the virtual content business, including revenue sharing and advertising, has generated considerable profits.

Most importantly, the large-scale sale of virtual devices has brought strong demand to the semiconductor business, another core business of Zhiyun Group!
The large-scale sales of just one APO series graphics card are enough to bring substantial profits to the semiconductor business unit!

This is why the virtual device business has become one of the four core businesses of Zhiyun Group... It doesn't make much money on its own right now, but it can drive a lot of other businesses to make money.

This is also the core value of high-priced industrial consumer goods...it can drive the development of an entire industrial chain!

Based on their impact on the industry chain, virtual devices, intelligent robots, and intelligent electric vehicles are very similar products.

They all share several common characteristics:

First, its high price allows it to carry greater added value.

Second, they are all consumer goods for civilian use, which means they have large production capacity and large sales volume, often reaching millions or even higher.

Third, they are all large items with numerous components, which can drive the development of a large number of industrial chains.

Once this industry develops, it will have a tremendous impact on the economic system.

Xu Shenxue enjoys playing with these kinds of industrial products.

(End of this chapter)