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Chapter 283 How could they have this ability?

The Tai Chi series quantum simulation computer software research center is always busy.

It also houses half of the only ten quantum simulation engineering prototypes in the world.

The new quantum simulation engineering prototype is two times larger than a classical electronic computer.

It is about half the size of a single-drum washing machine. The entire cabinet is transparent, but not much can be seen inside.

When the machine is running, you can only see through the glass two CD-like objects inside spinning rapidly. It is very quiet most of the time, but occasionally it will make a low "buzzing" sound.

However, these details are actually not that important. The appearance and noise of the engineering machine are secondary.

When it is actually released, the requirements will be higher.

And because DIY is not supported, the panel will not be removable. The sealing can also be done better.

As for heat dissipation, the overall design adopts a combination of an immersion liquid cooling system and a topological phononic crystal cooling structure.

This is one of the reasons why the cost of this product is so high. After all, the research and development cost of this cooling system alone is as high as more than 1 billion yuan.

The external device interfaces of the chassis are placed directly on the side, and there are eight interfaces for external display cards. Eight monitors are directly connected and eight different programs are running simultaneously.

Scientific researchers in white coats are monitoring and recording the operating status of the prototype through other equipment connected to the engineering machine.

Du Kai is one of the researchers in the laboratory.

However, compared with other researchers, his daily work is to use the new engineering prototype to perform various calculation projects arranged above, and record the hardware status and calculation results.

Although he had many opportunities to use new computers, it was a pity that his tutor had not yet allowed him to participate in software and hardware development. This also made Du Kai feel a little bored and envious...

For example, several of his seniors have been able to get involved in the development work, such as quantum hardware mapping optimization, hybrid computing architecture development, quantum software stack construction, etc.

Obviously, you can gain more experience doing development work and earn more.

Although they are still in the doctoral stage, his senior colleagues earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and can publish articles.

As for him… he could actually publish an article, and it might even be popular, but he can’t! Because all the laboratory results are confidential.

It was as if he was doing system-level cascade testing.

The main task is to run the quantum supremacy benchmark suite while performing long-term continuous annealing stress tests, and by the way record the abnormal interference patterns caused by the quantum tunneling effect.

The results he produces will be fed back to the development department of the research center for targeted modifications.

Life is boring.

But there are also benefits. Although the money is less, there are also fewer things to do and less pressure.

For example, when doing tests, you don’t need to be constantly watched, you can read a book, play a game, etc. and no one will bother you. You don’t need to work overtime like the development department does.

And the work on the front line can, in a sense, also define the boundaries of quantum computing.

Du Kai feels that no one knows how to use quantum operating systems better than them, the front-line testers.

After all, his work seems simple, and it seems that nothing requires in-depth research, but he needs to understand a little bit about every aspect of the entire quantum simulation computing process.

He is undoubtedly an all-rounder.

And although I have to watch these computers most of the day, I don’t feel too lonely because I can chat with them when I have nothing to do.

This can even be classified as one of the testing tasks, as the Tai Chi series computers are already equipped with intelligent voice assistant function.

Even the entry-level Tai Chi-Qiyuan is equipped with a full version of the intelligent voice assistant function.

Just as his eyes were tired from watching videos, Du Kai put down his phone, leaned back in the artificial intelligence chair in the laboratory, glanced at the running program, and suddenly felt that something was wrong.

The program seems to be running normally...

Just when he was feeling suspicious, Du Kai turned his head and saw the system running time, 43:17:21, and then reacted quickly.

It has been running for almost two days since the last update, and no error has been reported...

Du Kai scratched his head subconsciously, then called out, "Baozi."

"Hello, Xiao Du, what's going on?"

Baozi is the name Du Kai specifically gave to this computer voice assistant. As for Xiao Du, he also asked the computer to call itself that.

Although testers need to be on duty 24 hours a day, so there are three people in total, it doesn't matter.

The voice assistant of this engineering machine supports multi-person binding voice system.

In other words, it supports identifying multiple users and binding different names through face recognition and voice recognition.

Simply put, the voice assistant of the same computer supports different names, and then can be woken up by specific people with specific names and enter different system interfaces.

This way, the privacy of different people using the same computer is ensured, while also allowing users to have more personalized interactions.

For example, Du Kai likes this computer to directly call him Xiao Du, so that when he occasionally chats with the computer when he is bored, he can appear very friendly.

One of his colleagues has a weird personality, so he asked the person who liked this computer to call it the emperor...

"You've been running for 43 hours without any errors. I suspect you've been slacking off."

"Xiao Du, I'm not lazy. All the calculation processes have been backed up. Do you need to retrieve them for review?"

"Well, Baozi, call up the timing of the data acquisition card."

"Okay, Xiao Du, the acquisition card timing will be displayed for you on screen number one."

Soon the calculation window running on the first screen was minimized, and the detailed data from the data acquisition card were displayed.

Du Kai put his hand on the mouse and began to look through it carefully.

It doesn't seem to be luck. According to the background data collected by the data card, the system is indeed running normally.

This discovery also made Du Kai excited. After all, this was the first time that the system could run smoothly for such a long time without any major logical errors causing the system to freeze and restart.

This reminded him of the day when he was about to get off work and his senior brother came to do the update and told him mysteriously that there would be a major update this time and there might be a surprise.

To be honest, he didn't quite believe it at the time. Because there were too many such things. Every time there was a major update, it could solve a bunch of problems.

Many problems have indeed been solved, but the longest normal operation under high load before was only twenty hours.

And most of the time, major updates require disassembling the chassis. The last update didn’t even involve disassembling the chassis…

"Baozi, run the cross entropy benchmark."

"Okay, Xiao Du, the cross entropy benchmarking program has been started."

The cross-entropy benchmark test includes many aspects, but the test software in the computer mainly compares the calculated cross-difference between the actual output distribution of the N-qubit circuit and the ideal simulated distribution.

Simply put, it is to evaluate the operating status of the quantum processor performance.

The fact that the quantum processor can run continuously for more than 40 hours under high load without any errors and still maintain a good condition is indeed a major breakthrough.

In fact, as early as the beginning of the year, I only used this computer to play games, browse the web, and watch videos, and there was no problem.

As long as it does not involve highly complex quantum calculations, the stability of the system and hardware has been achieved, which is no different from that of current electronic computers.

And it will be even smarter. After all, the new operating system code is very concise, unlike those mountains of code. It can be connected to the current artificial intelligence technology without any burden.

In addition, quantum computing is more compatible with advanced machine learning techniques, so it can outperform ordinary electronic computers in the field of artificial intelligence.

But obviously this is not enough. If it cannot perform high-load quantum tasks, it will be completely cost-effective.

After all, it is just to complete simple tasks. In fact, this computer has no advantages over classic computers, and it lacks mature ecological application support.

Without established mature advantages in specific quantum tasks, it will be difficult to quickly build an ecosystem capable of circulation.

After all, the web page rendering speed is 8 times that of the Chrome V1.2 engine, and the video decoding power consumption can be reduced by 30%. Although such data can be used for publicity, ordinary users can't feel it at all during use.

But if you tell users that this computer can create a 3D model that matches the scene description within a few minutes through voice description, the feeling will immediately change.

Because people can truly feel the advanced features in all aspects. This is what makes people willing to spend money to buy it and earn back the R&D costs.

After all, the price of this thing is not cheap. More than 50,000 yuan is just for this chassis, not including any peripherals.

In fact, in Du Kai's opinion, it would be a waste to make this thing into a general consumer product for the whole nation now.

If he could control the Quantum Alliance, he would definitely develop a dedicated large-scale quantum simulation computer and sell it to wealthy companies in the scientific research and financial fields.

For example, it can be sold to pharmaceutical companies for drug molecule screening; sold to financial companies for quantification and security protection; sold to cloud service providers such as Penguin, Youwei, Microsoft, and Google to build a dedicated super quantum cloud server...

Not only can you sell at a higher price, but you can also save several times the initial work. After all, when it comes to directly facing consumers, there are too many problems to solve.

Many times, people who design computers cannot imagine how many ways a computer can be used in the hands of ordinary people.

Of course, Du Kai is not against quantum simulation computers entering ordinary households. It is entirely possible to occupy the dedicated market first, complete the technical accumulation, and then start research directly targeting the consumer market.

He even asked his mentor Wang Xingyao about this question at a dinner party. The answer he got made him truly start to admire Qiao Yu.

"Why do you think there was a live broadcast of quantum simulation computing? Why did Academician Qiao Yu insist on launching this project? It was because Microsoft had angered Academician Qiao Yu.

So if, as you said, we first build a large-scale simulated quantum computer for the B-side, it will indeed save a lot of trouble. We don’t even need to build a quantum simulation technology standards alliance. But there is no way to vent!
Now that the Quantum Technology Standards Alliance has been established and has begun to develop universal quantum simulation computers and systems, do you think the other side is anxious? I tell you, they are extremely anxious. The stock price has been falling! "

Du Kai understood what I said.

This is Academician Qiao's way of venting his anger on Microsoft!
It can only be said that he is happy to take revenge and has talent and willfulness. Obviously, talent is the most important thing. After all, willfulness can still have people to support it. Even if there are hundreds of billions of investments, it is obviously impossible to be without talent.

This kind of life is something people yearn for.

Only those who engage in scientific research know how difficult it is to obtain financial support for a project.

Although Du Kai is only a PhD student and has not yet reached the stage where he needs to find projects on his own, he saw with his own eyes during his master's studies how humble his supervisor at the time could be in order to get projects.

As a master's supervisor, he can be summoned by the client at any time. Sometimes Du Kai feels sad for the supervisor.

Look at how easy it is for Academician Qiao to get a project. As soon as he puts forward a concept, people will line up and wave their money to invest, even if it is just to vent his anger.

The contrast was so strong that Du Kai felt that this was what a real man doing scientific research should be like.

However, Du Kai did not have so many thoughts at the moment. He had devoted himself to Baozi's self-examination process.

Once a person concentrates on doing something, time always passes very quickly.

Two hours passed in a blink of an eye. If the phone that was casually thrown next to him hadn't suddenly rang, he wouldn't have noticed that it was almost time for lunch.

After checking the caller ID, Du Kai immediately answered the phone. Without waiting for the other party to open his mouth, he excitedly said, "Boss, good news. I don't know what Brother Zhou updated the day before yesterday. The No. 3 machine has been running surprisingly stably under high load these two days.

I am doing benchmark tests, and when dynamic rank learning is turned on in high mode, there is no obvious drop in compression rate and entanglement fidelity. The system operation remains stable, and it can be guaranteed to be stable for two consecutive days. "

Obviously, Wang Xingyao on the other side was quite surprised by this news, and he asked directly: "Oh? So amazing?"

"Yes, boss, it's really that magical. If you don't believe me, you can come and see for yourself." Du Kai said immediately.

"Oh, by the way, I called you to tell you about this. I will go to the research center with Academician Qiao this afternoon. We will visit several laboratories.

You must prepare all the test reports of the laboratory you are responsible for during this period, especially those after the update made by Senior Brother Zhou. "

Hearing this, Du Kai became inexplicably excited.

He has been in charge of this work for almost a year now, and has never seen Qiao Yu in the laboratory.

It’s not that Qiao Yu had never been to the laboratory, but he came very rarely. Du Kai heard that he had come twice, but unfortunately he missed it both times, mainly because no one notified him in advance.

This time I finally get to see him in person.

"Don't worry, boss. Everything is ready. We are just waiting for Academician Qiao to come. By the way, can you tell me why Academician Qiao suddenly wants to come to the laboratory?"

“Guess why so many problems were solved at once after this update. If you guessed it, you should understand.”

Du Kai suddenly realized...

He just said...

It’s not that he underestimates his fellow disciples, it’s just that they don’t have that ability!
(End of this chapter)