I am devoted to scientific research, but you want to trick me into having a love relationship?

Chapter 609 I never joke about technical issues.
On the sixth day after the report meeting, the EU passed the Battery Law, which restricts the export of technologies such as gallium, germanium, and lithium processing for batteries, and requires Chinese companies to provide carbon footprint data.

Invoking the VAS-Senaar Arrangement, the transfer of core solid-state battery technology to China is prohibited.

Carbon footprint data means that companies in China must provide data on every stage from raw material extraction, production, transportation to recycling.

The day before, the United States passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which formed a technological alliance with the European Union's Battery Law, restricting China's supply chain.

In just a few days, they have come up with a combination of "market protection and technology containment".

Xu Qingzhou glanced at the message but lost interest, focusing instead on the discussions at the report meeting.

Such a major event would naturally attract the attention of the European media.

Sure enough, that very evening, an AFP news item titled "US and Europe join forces to break through solid-state battery technology, ending China's lithium battery hegemony" became a trending topic.

The news report provided a detailed analysis of the Max Planck Institute's technological breakthrough.

The European Commission office at noon on November 7.

The middle-aged man nodded in satisfaction, looked at his assistant who had just entered, and asked, "What's the reaction from Xia Guo?"

"As always, the official stance is one of cooperation and mutual benefit. According to information from the public, they have been holding closed-door meetings these past few days, and there has been no chaos as we had anticipated."

"wait a few more days."

European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson.

"Mr. Simson, this is your schedule for today."

The assistant nodded and handed over the tablet.

An interview with the Financial Times.

In the evening, there will be a dinner with representatives from European battery companies and car manufacturers.

"People from Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz want to meet you."

"Are these Germans still opposed to my containment policy?"

German automakers derive over 30% of their global revenue from sales in Germany, and any retaliation would be devastating. Therefore, Germany has largely opposed the EU's proposed solutions.

"A bunch of short-sighted people."

Simson muttered a curse under his breath, then thought for a moment and said, "I'd rather go play a couple of rounds on the golf course than listen to their nagging."

“I will tell them that you have important business to attend to this afternoon and do not have time to meet.”

The assistant said with a smile.

Meanwhile, in the Xia Kingdom, night had already fallen.

CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited).

Chen Rongxuan had just finished his visit to the Kyoto Materials Research Institute and was meeting with CEO Bai Mingzhe and others in his office.

"CATL's market value has evaporated by hundreds of billions, and China's battery empire is facing collapse."

Looking at the news from abroad, Chen Rongxuan shook his head, put down his phone, and said with a sigh, "Fortunately, the Kyoto Materials Research Institute made up for the technical defects, otherwise these foreigners might have really succeeded."

Zhang Xiaofeng, who is in charge of marketing, said: "In fact, no matter what, Europe and the United States cannot reverse the technological gap in a short period of time. After all, China currently accounts for 50% of the world's battery production capacity. If they want to rebuild the supply chain, it will take at least 5 years and hundreds of billions of dollars in investment."

"We can't let our guard down. Europe and America still have a very strong technological foundation. Personally, I think we should increase our investment in solid-state batteries," Chen Rongxuan sighed.

CEO Bai Mingzhe nodded and said, "We need to accelerate our efforts. It seems that the era of solid-state batteries will arrive sooner than expected."

When will the Kyoto Institute for Materials Science announce its findings?

"They are still doing technical summaries, which will take at least 3 days."

On November 7th, the seven-day Frontier Physics Conference concluded with a grand and lively reception.

suite.

Xu Qingzhou tossed his suit jacket onto the bed and leaned back on the sofa to rest. He had been working non-stop for seven days. Although he had learned a lot, he was really tired. Now, as soon as he lay down, he didn't want to move.

The plane tickets are already bought; the flight is tomorrow at 3:30 PM. He's traveling with Professor Ma Xuan.

The other professors all had activities planned; some intended to spend a couple of days here, while others planned to have further exchanges, since it's not easy to travel abroad.

The next day, Xu Qingzhou said goodbye to the professors he knew one by one, had lunch, and then got into the jeep that Su Kewei had borrowed with Professor Ma Xuan and headed towards London.

Half past two in the afternoon.

The three of them have arrived at the airport.

Coincidentally, Xu Qingzhou ran into an old acquaintance at the airport: Professor Maxwell, a condensed matter expert from Princeton.

"Professor Maxwell."

Xu Qingzhou greeted the other person with a smile. The two had met several times during the past few days of report meetings and participated in several discussion sessions together.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Professor Maxwell prepared to catch his flight.

Professor Maxwell couldn't help but ask, "Professor Xu, you said in your report on November 2nd that you would push the performance of superconducting thin films even higher, far exceeding the current values. I mean, is that possible?"

"I never joke about technical issues."

Xu Qingzhou said earnestly, "If nothing unexpected happens, there will be a revolutionary breakthrough in the field of superconducting thin films in the near future."

"."

"I'm looking forward to it. Okay, Professor Xu, Professor Ma, goodbye."

Professor Maxwell left in a hurry.

In the VIP lounge, Professor Maxwell met up with another member of his team; there were four of them in total. He and his student went back first.

The middle-aged man reported excitedly: "The lab sent an email saying that the Jc performance of our sample has reached 3.8 × 10 A/cm, which means that the performance of our superconducting thin film has surpassed that of Xu Qingzhou and his team!"

"Calm down, Henderson."

"You and Professor Xu didn't seem to have a pleasant conversation."

"No, it's very enjoyable."

Professor Maxwell breathed a sigh of relief. "He just said that there will be a revolutionary breakthrough in superconducting thin films."

"A revolutionary breakthrough? Have they already pushed the performance of superconducting thin films to over 4.0 × 10 A/cm?"

Professor Maxwell said, "That's possible. Of course, it's also possible that they just want to attract investment. After all, it's a tradition at presentations to present a vague concept at the end."

"Oh, damn it, this can't be! Weren't they focusing all their efforts on lithium dendrites and the shuttle effect?"

"Let's go, it's time to board. Hopefully, this is just us scaring ourselves."

In the airport terminal, Xu Qingzhou and Professor Ma Xuan were also saying goodbye to Su Kewei.

"Junior Brother Xu, let's have dinner together again when I return to China next time."

"Okay, I'll treat you next time."

"Kewei, thank you for bringing us here this time."

"Professor Ma, please don't say that. It's not easy to see an acquaintance in a foreign country, so it's only right to see them off, especially since you are my elder."

"Tsk tsk, Professor Gu's students are indeed just like him, neither arrogant nor impatient, but humble and polite."

"You flatter me."

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Xu Qingzhou and Ma Xuan prepared to enter the boarding gate.

Before leaving, Xu Qingzhou said, "We talked about how the group operation complexity of high-dimensional clusters is much higher than that of elliptic curves. You might try using projective coordinates to reduce modular inverse operations, and by using deep theorems in algebraic geometry, introduce blinding techniques to hide the intermediate values ​​of scalar multiplication."

Consider it a gift for this Senior Brother Su.

Su Kewei fell into deep thought, standing there blankly for a few minutes before his eyes suddenly lit up. He muttered to himself, "Well, I owe my junior brother a huge favor."

(End of this chapter)