Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 647 Global Outburst and Winter Press Conference
Friday, December 24th.

The news that Zhuyun Group's total market capitalization had exceeded ten trillion US dollars had already spread across the internet as soon as the stock market closed for the day!

The buzz surrounding this news is no less than, and perhaps even greater than, the recent news about superconducting quantum computers.

While the YCL-52 superconducting quantum computer released by Zhiyun Group is a cutting-edge technology, frankly speaking, it has little direct relevance to ordinary people.

A single computing unit costs over 500 million yuan, which is unaffordable even for less powerful companies, let alone individuals.

The YCL-52 superconducting quantum computer is a production device specifically designed for large high-tech enterprises, and it is a very high-end and very expensive piece of equipment.

While ordinary people are shocked by this, they don't really feel anything special about it.

However, Zhuyun Group is different... This company is also listed in China, and has conducted several share issuances since its listing in China. Currently, its circulating shares in the domestic stock market account for 15% of the total share capital.

Based on a market capitalization of ten trillion US dollars, there are 1.5 trillion US dollars worth of stocks circulating in the domestic stock market.

These stocks are either held by various funds or by a large number of individual investors... In addition, a considerable portion of the funds for large public funds also come from the personal funds of ordinary people... There are actually quite a lot of people who buy funds.

To some extent, anyone in China who plays the stock or fund market holds a certain amount of Zhiyun Group stock... because it is large enough that it is the type of stock that many investment institutions use to balance their portfolios.

Even retail investors often buy some shares of Zhuyun Group to diversify risk and treat it as a long-term investment.

Especially in recent years, funds have been gradually flowing out of the real estate market. Not only have housing prices failed to rise, but some areas have even faced a slight decline. As a result, a view has emerged among many middle-class and above groups: it is better to buy Zhiyun stock than to buy a house.

In addition, a considerable portion of the shares are held in the primary market by domestic pension funds, medical insurance funds, and other policy-related funds, and the shareholding ratio of these funds is also substantial. Ultimately, these large sums of money are used for the benefit of a large number of people and are closely and indirectly related to them.

A large amount of domestic capital holds shares in Zhuyun Group, which means that fluctuations in Zhuyun Group's stock price will affect the wallets of many people!

Its impact is still very significant.

Therefore, the rise in Zhuyun Group's stock price benefits a wide range of people, not just a few shareholders who bought Zhuyun Group's stock.

This is why, after Zhuyun Group's market value exceeded ten trillion US dollars, there was a lot of related news and heated discussions on the Chinese internet.

Everyone is happy that they made money... Although it's all just paper profit and not real profit, it's still better than a paper loss!

Interestingly, the rise in the stock price of Zhiyun Group also boosted the stock prices of other companies under Xu Shenxue's name.

The stock prices of many listed companies directly or indirectly controlled by Xu Shenxue, such as Yihai Technology Group, Hailan Automobile Group, Weiku Electronics Group, Weiku Industrial Group, Weiku Trading Group, and Huaxing Technology, a screen manufacturer that went public at the beginning of this year, have all seen significant increases.

In addition, the stock prices of some companies closely related to Zhiyun Group have also risen sharply... For example, Zhiyun Group recently released a superconducting quantum computer, which once again stimulated the capital market's pursuit of the 'computing power sector'.

The stock prices of the supply chain manufacturers that provide various products or technical support to the computing power sector of Zhiyun Group have all risen sharply.

In addition, some companies that are not part of the Zhiyun Group's supply chain but still belong to the computing power sector, and which provide various equipment or services to various artificial intelligence computing centers, have also attracted the attention and favor of the capital market.

This is not only the case domestically, but also overseas... It's a very simple logic: After Zhiyun Group released the YCL-52 superconducting quantum computer, large companies such as Google purchased it in large quantities to build computing centers. These computing centers also need other types of equipment, which will bring more orders, more revenue, and more profits to the suppliers of these equipment.

Even the stock prices of Intel, AMD, Micron, and Samsung have risen slightly in this wave of stock market activity... because the 'Smart Cloud Quantum Integrated Computing System' sold to the United States uses CPUs, enterprise-grade memory, and flash memory chips in its GTL servers, all of which are products of these companies.

On the one hand, they don't actually have any computing chip products. AMD does have computing cards, but their computing card business is quite special. Most of their sales are supplied to the defense sector within the Western system, and their market share in the civilian market is almost negligible... This means that the market is not affected by APO graphics cards.

No matter how many APO graphics cards you have or how many you sell, it doesn't affect AMD's computing card business... They make their living from 'security' and they're quite happy with the high subsidies they receive every year.

The main business of these companies is still traditional semiconductor products...and they don't have much to do with artificial intelligence.

Therefore, the development of superconducting quantum computers by Zhiyun Group has not had any real negative impact on their product sales... What really has an impact is Zhiyun Group's own APO graphics cards.

The YCL-52 superconducting quantum computer replaced a portion of the market share of APO graphics cards, but the continued high-speed growth of the entire computing power market offset this impact.

On the contrary, these companies' traditional semiconductor products are able to enter a portion of the Zhiyun supply chain and thus benefit.

While actual sales may not be large, its reputation is outstanding... It has infiltrated the supply chain of the top-tier 'Zhiyun Quantum Integrated Computing System' within the Zhiyun Group.

The entire Western system has countless companies, but only these four companies' products can be used as key components in this system!

Other core components are either from Zhuyun Group itself, its sister companies, or domestic partners; overseas companies have nothing to do with them.

This signifies approval!
They didn't make much money, but they gained a good reputation... At least they can proudly say that they are still world-class in the three fields of server CPUs, enterprise-grade memory, and enterprise-grade flash memory, and are qualified to be included in the top-tier 'YCL-52 Smart Cloud Quantum Comprehensive Computing System'!
Currently, even many Western industrial companies from Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea consider it an honor to be included in Zhiyun's supply chain system...

How much money you make is secondary; the key is Zhiyun's recognition... And Zhiyun Group's recognition means that your product or technology has reached at least the top three level globally!

Zhiyun Group never uses products from suppliers that are not among the top three globally!

The superconducting quantum computer released by Zhiyun Group has also driven up the stock prices of many overseas high-tech companies... After purchasing and deploying the superconducting quantum computer, their artificial intelligence technology level has been improved, and their market competitiveness has been further strengthened.

In particular, several leading high-tech companies have a greater advantage in this regard.

Therefore, during this period, thanks to the release of the superconducting quantum computer by Zhiyun Group, the stock prices of many high-tech companies around the world have been rising, both domestically and overseas.

However, most of the stock price increases were not as dramatic as the market value of Zhiyun Group exceeding ten trillion US dollars, nor did they have such a huge impact.

On the same day, the Wall Street Journal reported on its front page that Zhuyun Group's market value had exceeded one trillion dollars, and provided an in-depth analysis of the supporting logic behind Zhuyun Group's estimated breakthrough of one trillion dollars, as well as the impact it would have.

Some media outlets went to extremes, linking the trillion-dollar market capitalization of Zhiyun Group with the previous release of the superconducting quantum computer, along with a series of other recent technological breakthroughs, such as the mass production and commercialization of solid-state batteries, the continued advancement of autonomous driving technology, the development of human immune drugs represented by Xeloda broad-spectrum anticancer drugs, and the continuous breakthroughs in commercial spaceflight, among many other areas of technological progress.

Finally, it was concluded that the Fourth Industrial Revolution in human history had fully arrived...

"With artificial intelligence at its core, and breakthroughs in fields such as autonomous driving, biomedicine, quantum computing, robotics, and virtual worlds, humanity has undoubtedly embarked on the Fourth Industrial Revolution!"

These media outlets have directly invoked the term "Fourth Industrial Revolution," and while doing so, they haven't forgotten to raise some points for reflection and caution.

The aforementioned technological breakthroughs were all achieved by or were made possible by the various companies under Xu Shenxue's control.

These top-tier technology companies include Zhiyun Group, Hailan Automotive Group, Nanmen Aerospace, and Galaxy Bio... Of course, overseas companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Tesla, and SpaceX are also involved, but their participation is not high, especially in terms of playing a leading role.

Therefore, there is a call to increase investment and attention in many fields such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence, robotics, and virtual worlds... otherwise, we will be completely left behind in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The focus of these reports is not to promote Xu Shenxue's companies such as Zhiyun Group, nor even to promote the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Rather, they are more about reflection and vigilance, and are primarily aimed at calling for attention from the Western industrial system.

However, once this news was relayed back to China, it became a source of great excitement for many domestic self-media bloggers... Overseas media were hyping up the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but then they discovered that, wow, these core technologies were basically developed or led by China.

Then watching it made me feel happy!

As for reflections and warnings, they were simply ignored... Many self-media bloggers, when reposting overseas reports, simply removed this part and only extracted the parts that praised companies like Zhiyun Group.

Superconducting quantum computers, a market capitalization of ten trillion dollars, the Fourth Industrial Revolution... these terms are appearing one after another, leaving netizens in awe... It feels like the whole world is surrounded by Zhiyun!
In addition to these key news items, Zhuyun Group's subsidiaries Zhuyun Semiconductor and Zhuyun Storage also jointly held a new product launch event in November.

At the press conference, Zhiyun Group released its new generation of consumer-grade CPUs based on the x86 instruction set: the WZ100 series and the WZU100 series.

The former is the desktop version, and the latter is the mobile version.

This series of chips uses the N4 process, also known as the four-nanometer process in the advertisement. Thanks to the breakthrough in process technology and the excellent chip design, this series of chips has very powerful performance. The desktop version has extremely powerful performance and is quite good for work or gaming.

The mobile version, as always, focuses on low power consumption, prioritizing battery life over performance.

At the same time, Zhiyun Storage also released several new consumer-grade memory and flash memory chips.

However, some core products were not released, such as the X-series gaming graphics card. This is mainly because the graphics card has become a core product of the Zhiyun Group, a graphics card for virtual devices... In order to ensure the topicality of virtual products, the launch of the X graphics card has been linked to the launch of virtual devices.

In December, the superconducting quantum computer was unveiled, which even led to the postponement of the traditional winter launch event.

The hype surrounding superconducting quantum computers is so intense that releasing other new products during this period risks being overshadowed and ending up being largely unknown...

In addition, the new generation of robot products also faces some mass production issues that need to be resolved, so after considering all factors, the event was postponed to January.

In early January, when the outside world was still very excited about superconducting quantum computers and the news that Zhiyun Group had broken through the $10 trillion market value mark, Zhiyun Group officially held its winter press conference.

At the press conference, a new generation of intelligent robots was unveiled… featuring significant technological upgrades in both hardware and software performance. This has sparked considerable discussion. Of course, this is a routine technological upgrade and won't generate a huge buzz, but it will attract the attention of potential robot consumers or those with older robot models, leading them to place orders.

Zhiyun Group's intelligent robot business has been growing steadily in recent years... especially the low-end entry-level C-series products, which are priced between 150,000 and 200,000 yuan, which is equivalent to the price of an ordinary car and is acceptable to most middle-class families.

One factor in deciding whether to buy is practical needs, such as those related to housework, caregiving, and education. For example, families with elderly members to help with childcare generally don't need these robots.

However, for families without elderly relatives to help, such as dual-income families or families where the husband works while the wife takes care of two or three children, then such robots are very necessary to reduce the burden of housework... These robots are quite adept at doing housework.

In particular, this year's software upgrades have significantly enhanced the robot's cooking capabilities... Zhiyun Group collected a large amount of data on home cooking and then trained the robot to greatly improve its cooking abilities.

In the past, robots could only cook a few simple dishes, and often needed human assistance, unable to complete complex tasks on their own.

But now, robots can handle everything from picking vegetables, washing vegetables, to cooking... and have partnered with multiple kitchenware manufacturers to launch a series of kitchenware specifically for robots, including iron pots, frying pans, and rice cookers. These are all highly intelligent products that can connect with robots and provide them with a range of sensor data.

Of course, it's possible to do it without these special kitchen utensils; robots can also collect and analyze data using their own sensors... Special kitchen utensils for robots are just a way to make money: these things are very expensive.

Zhiyun Group has been continuously improving the performance of intelligent robots, especially in terms of software, which is a key factor in promoting the year-on-year increase in robot sales.

The robot market has now passed the novelty phase. Those who were purely curious or wanted to experience high technology have basically already bought what they needed. The mainstream buyers now are middle-to-high-income families with certain needs.

Therefore, the practicality of robots is very important.

Therefore, we can see that in recent years, Zhiyun Group's technological advancements in the field of intelligent robots have mainly revolved around home use scenarios, such as sweeping and mopping, washing clothes, hanging clothes, tidying rooms, cooking, caring for children or the elderly, and providing educational guidance for children.

These seemingly trivial things are actually essential needs in people's daily lives... After all, not everyone has a nanny!
Now, the core pursuit of the Zhiyun Group's robot project team is to make their robots become nannies for ordinary families... a one-time investment that can be used for many years, and can continuously enjoy performance upgrades.

Because all the advanced features of the robot require payment to activate... With a monthly payment plan, there is naturally no need to pay extra for upgrades. As long as you pay to activate it, you will enjoy the latest version's performance.

Of course, this is limited to software upgrades, and software upgrades also have their limits... mainly due to limitations imposed by the computing chip and other hardware of the machine, many advanced features of the new version cannot be used.

As for hardware upgrades, only paid upgrades are offered in the battery field; other upgrades are not offered. This is because the early robots used semi-solid-state batteries, which are already very safe. At the same time, Zhiyun Group has invested heavily in battery safety.

However, certain risks still exist... These risks were ignored and overlooked in the past, but that doesn't mean they don't exist: lithium batteries always have safety risks!
Therefore, after solid-state batteries were applied to robots, Zhiyun Group launched a limited-time discounted service for users of older models to replace their batteries with solid-state batteries. The price was very cheap, basically just the cost price of the battery. Not to mention making a profit, they even lost money on labor costs and other expenses.

While this may seem to incur some cost, it avoids potential risks: if a robot using semi-solid-state batteries were to catch fire in a home, the consequences would be extremely serious...

Although this has never happened before, the risk still exists.

Therefore, once solid-state batteries were introduced, Zhuyun Group was willing to supply them at cost price and also pay additional labor service costs to provide solid-state battery replacement services for users of older models.

The purpose is to nip potential risks in the bud.

This is actually quite low considering the high price of smart robots, where battery costs account for a relatively small percentage... Considering their high price and the subsequent high fees for advanced features, even giving users a free solid-state battery wouldn't be too much of a burden.

Therefore, it's acceptable to replace the battery at a loss.

Today, most of the older models of robots that were sold in the early days have had their batteries replaced with solid-state batteries. The models that have not yet been replaced will also gradually reach the end of their original battery life and then need to be replaced... and only solid-state batteries are available for battery replacement.

Unbeknownst to users, the background update pushed by Zhiyun Group also limited the remaining lifespan of the original semi-solid-state battery under the pretext of safety, in order to urge users to replace it with a solid-state battery as soon as possible.

After all, solid-state batteries do not pose any risk of spontaneous combustion, which is very important for robots designed for home use.

Safety is always the most important thing...

Because solid-state batteries are not prone to spontaneous combustion, the charging speed can be made even faster, and they are also more convenient to use.

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.

At this winter product launch event in January, in addition to robotic products, Zhiyun Group also released a new generation of PC products.

In addition to the conventional x86 instruction set PC products, this year Zhuyun Group's PC business unit has also provided consumers in the global market with an additional option: the L-series mobile computer chip, which is based on the S-series SOC chip and is equipped with its own R&D technology!

It is paired with the YunPC OS operating system, which is an improvement on the Yun OS system... The biggest feature of this operating system is that it can be compatible with the huge Yun OS ecosystem and the YunPAD OS ecosystem on tablets!
Zhiyun Group has wanted to develop laptops based on its own Yun OS ecosystem for a long time, but it has been difficult to do so due to the dominance of the x86 ecosystem. Therefore, in recent years, it has been promoting the ecosystem on tablet computers.

The average person outside the company may not know this, but Zhiyun Group's tablet software design and ecosystem development are increasingly moving towards the laptop field.

After years of cultivating the tablet ecosystem, especially in the office sector, Zhiyun Group believes that the ecosystem is now capable of supporting the needs of laptops.

As chips for smart devices, the S-series SOCs excel at low power consumption, and the L-series chips, which are improved upon from this, also naturally possess the characteristic of low power consumption.

The low power consumption of the L-series chip, combined with the high-capacity solid-state battery in the laptop, will result in a very long battery life for this laptop!

The combination of the L-series chips and the YunPC OS operating system represents a trial and exploration by Zhiyun Group in the PC market, aiming to further establish and solidify its own Yun OS content ecosystem.

On the other hand, it's also to counter the impact of Apple's new laptops launched last year with M-series chips and their proprietary operating system...

This Apple laptop uses an M-series chip, which has very low power consumption, resulting in excellent battery life. At the same time, due to its low power consumption, heat dissipation is also very well controlled.

This laptop has received positive feedback in many countries, which has put considerable pressure on Zhiyun Group's laptop business in overseas markets.

The traditional x86 instruction set combined with the Windows system makes it somewhat difficult to use.

Therefore, Zhiyun Group is also launching its L-series chips and YunPC OS system, which it has been preparing for many years, to the market!
This has resulted in three versions of the PC business within the Zhiyun Group... For example, there are actually three versions of the 13.3-inch Yun Book13, and they all look exactly the same, as do all other components.

The only differences are the CPU chip and the operating system.

A WZ series x86 instruction set chip, plus a standard version of the WIN operating system, this is what people used to call the Zhiyun laptop, which is a mainstream product.

One is the P-series SOP instruction set chip, which is paired with the YunLPC OS operating system, which is based on Linux and heavily modified. This part of the business is mainly for domestic institutions and special enterprises. Almost no individuals or regular enterprises purchase it because the ecosystem is incompatible.

This SOP series of computers was actually designed for security, and its applicability and commercial use were very poor, so its sales were actually very low.

If you see staff members from some organizations carrying a Zhiyun laptop, it's very likely this version...

The last one is the newly launched L-series laptop based on its own S-series chip and YunPC OS operating system... mainly targeting the personal and enterprise office market, competing with Apple's new M-series laptops.

The three different PC products with different chips and operating systems mentioned above represent different responsibilities and ambitions of Zhuyun Group in the PC business!

As for the market acceptance of the newly released L-series chip version, that remains to be seen... But regardless, Zhiyun Group will persist in making it; they can't let their commercial PC business be forever tied to the x86 instruction set and the WIN operating system.

Even if we're completely bound to it, it's not a big deal. Zhiyun Group also has authorization for the X86 instruction set, so we can develop our own. It's not a big problem.

The key lies in the operating system. Microsoft is somewhat complacent, and its technological progress in the Windows operating system field has been too slow.

Zhuyun Group is very dissatisfied with this.

I'm fighting with the whole world of fruit, you can't hold me back...

Since the partners were not ambitious, Zhuyun Group decided to do it themselves.

After all, Zhuyun Group is a professional in chip design and operating system fields, and is at the top level in the industry, so there are no technical obstacles.

More importantly, in the area of ​​content ecosystem, Yun OS has accumulated a considerable amount of content ecosystem over the past ten years. After a certain degree of porting and compatibility, the content ecosystem issues of the new YunPC OS operating system can be largely resolved.

With hardware, software, and ecosystem all in place, Zhiyun Group's new laptops naturally appeared before consumers!

This has sparked discussions within the technology industry, and consumers are also buzzing about it.

Apple was already developing its M-series chips with its own operating system, and now Zhiyun Group is also developing its L-series chips, along with its own YunPC OS system…

Both use chips based on the ARM instruction set, and both offer significant compatibility with and portability of content ecosystems in the smart terminal field.

This has led many industry insiders to wonder if this means the PC industry is about to undergo drastic changes.

(End of this chapter)