Super Rich: Rebirth of the Top-Tier Rich Second Generation

It's now late March.

While several domestic car companies that were once at the forefront of the times were still struggling with how to increase battery range by tens of kilometers,

While industry experts were still debating at the forum whether ternary lithium or lithium iron phosphate was the future transition solution.

Wednesday morning, London time.

Without warning, a visually striking concept image suddenly appeared at the top of the official homepage of Nature Energy.

It was a solid electrolyte mesh that appeared as a perfect hexagonal honeycomb structure on a macroscopic scale.

From a microscopic perspective, there are countless blue dots representing lithium ions.

It is moving at an incredible speed, smoothly traversing along a previously unseen "controllable macromolecular self-assembly interface".

It is dazzling and full of technological sense.

And in the very center of that enormous cover preview poster, in bold, solid black font, was a powerful and imposing title for the trailer:

【Redefining the Next Two Decades】

(Redefining the next twenty years)

Immediately following, a small line of text appeared as a teaser:

"The team from Huaxia Yanqiong Technology has achieved a nanocomposite solid-state battery with a capacity of up to 1050Wh/kg at room temperature for the first time."

"Next Wednesday, this issue's cover story will officially launch online, allowing you to witness history together."

Almost instantly after the trailer was released, Nature Energy's official Twitter and Facebook accounts simultaneously posted the message with only four words:

Next Wednesday, witness history.

boom--!!!

It was as if a nuclear bomb with a yield of hundreds of millions of tons had been detonated directly over the heads of the global academic and industrial communities.

It doesn't need any media hype or marketing accounts to exaggerate its effects.

That cover image with the glaring figure of "1050Wh/kg" is itself the most terrifying declaration of war.

Within the first hour of the announcement, the entire world's top academic community was in an uproar.

America, Boston, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Professor James Crawford is standing on the stage in the lecture hall, preparing to teach "Advanced Solid State Physics and Interface Defects" to dozens of doctoral students from all over the world.

Suddenly, his teaching assistant pushed open the door in a panic, rushed to the podium without knocking, and handed a tablet computer to James.

James glanced at the NE website preview on the screen and saw that familiar "controllable macromolecular interface" model again.

This usually short-tempered and meticulous professor suddenly took a deep breath and then did something that left all the students speechless.

He slammed the lesson plan book on the lectern shut.

"Ladies and gentlemen," James said, his voice booming as he looked intently at the bright young men in the audience.

"I'm sorry, but half of the content in today's lesson plan has become a pile of meaningless historical scraps fifteen minutes ago."

The audience erupted in uproar, and the doctoral students looked at each other in bewilderment.

James turned around and wrote the names "Yan Jiang" and "Qinglan Shen" heavily on the blackboard with chalk.

"This lesson will not cover basic theory."

"Everyone, turn on your computers immediately and log in to the journal's official website to see the announcement."

James tossed the chalk into the chalk box and dusted off his hands.

"Today, we're not going to do anything."

"We'll be here together, waiting for next Wednesday, to read this paper from China that could change the livelihoods of all of us."

……

Max Planck Institute, Germany.

Professor Klaus Weber, a rigorous and demanding reviewer, arrived at the institute director's office five minutes after seeing the announcement on the official website, carrying an urgent application report.

"Klaus, what's wrong?" The director asked in surprise, seeing the usually composed Weber so out of sorts.

"I need money! I need to mobilize the institute's highest-level supercomputer computing power!" Weber slammed a screenshot of the trailer onto the director's desk, his face flushed.

"Immediately activate the internal emergency response project! The Chinese have found the ultimate key to solid-state batteries."

"I want to try to replicate their interface transmission model before we are completely left behind by the times!"

"If we're even a step behind, Europe's entire new energy industry will have no say in the next decade!"

……

Compared to the academic upheaval in the United States and Germany, the reaction in Japan, across the ocean, was one of utter despair and panic.

Professor Hiroshi Tanaka of the University of Tokyo was currently sitting in a black luxury car on his way to the Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Japan.

On his lap lay an industry warning report he had written all night.

Just now, executives from several major Japanese conglomerates (Panasonic and Toyota's solid-state battery division) have been calling him like crazy.

Everyone was desperately asking the same question:

Is the data on that poster accurate?

Has our 20-year bet on the sulfide route completely turned into a pile of garbage?

Tanaka Hiroshi did not answer the phone.

He knew the answer was yes.

The car was parked in front of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry building.

Tanaka looked at the report in his hand, titled "Strategies for Responding to Disruptive Solid-State Technologies in China." On the cover, he had written eight large characters in red pen.

"This isn't just ordinary technological iteration; this is a competition on a national scale!"

The shock to the global academic community was like the receding tide before a tsunami—suppressive yet surging.

The time has finally come to next Wednesday, 10:00 AM GMT.

The latest digital edition of Nature Energy is now officially available for download on the official website!

Ding--!

At that moment, research institutes of major universities around the world, strategic analysis departments of all Fortune 500 new energy vehicle companies, and top short-selling institutions on Wall Street and in the City of London were all involved.

Almost simultaneously, a frantic request for access to Nature Energy's servers was launched.

The flow was like a flood bursting its banks.

"Server load exceeds 800% threshold!"

"The backup node has crashed!"

"The database is facing a large-scale, denial-of-service attack..."

At the headquarters of Springer Nature in London, alarms were blaring from the IT department.

The official website of Nature Energy, which is known for its stability, crashed for a full twenty minutes under the unprecedented surge in traffic!

The webpage only displays a "404 Not Found" message, a sign of despair.

It wasn't until 20 minutes later, when Amazon Cloud's highest-level computing power was urgently deployed to expand the capacity, that the webpage was finally able to be accessed normally.

Released within 24 hours.

This 47-page full-length English PDF has been downloaded 108,000 times for a fee!

It directly broke the journal's highest record since its inception, and even raised the second-place record by a full five times!

More than twenty of the world’s top materials laboratories held an all-staff meeting on this sleepless night.

The slides were all enlarged images of the cryo-electron microscopy work known as the "miracle."

And at this very moment.

Seoul, South Korea.

As the only reviewer during the initial peer review process who maliciously questioned Jiang Yan's paper and even attempted to obtain the process log, I was the only one to do so.

Professor Park Joon-ho of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology is currently in an unprecedentedly embarrassing situation.

As soon as he stepped out of the laboratory building, he was surrounded by reporters from more than a dozen mainstream South Korean media outlets who had been lying in wait downstairs, armed with long lenses and microphones.

The flash almost blinded him.

"Professor Park! Have you seen the cover article of the latest issue of NE? I heard you were one of the reviewers for this paper?"

"There are rumors that the technology demonstrated by the Chinese team in their paper has rendered the billions of dollars in R&D investment by Samsung SDI and LG Chem in my country worthless. Is this true?"

"Professor Park, why didn't such a groundbreaking invention originate from our Republic of Korea?"

"With the Chinese government investing so much in scientific research every year, what exactly are we missing out on in the field of solid-state batteries?"

Listening to those sharp, piercing questions.

Park Joon-ho's face was deathly pale, and cold sweat poured down his forehead.

His ridiculous arrogance was shattered in the face of absolute power.

What could he say?

Can he say that he initially tried to use his power of peer review to steal someone else's technology, only to be slapped in the face by data from different batches?

"No comment! Scientific research requires time to verify!"

Park Joon-ho awkwardly pushed away the reporter's microphone and, escorted by security personnel, fled into a car like a stray dog.

That night, pessimistic and despairing voices began to rise within South Korea's intellectual and industrial circles.

"What exactly did we miss...?"

This question will become a huge dark cloud hanging over the peninsula in the future.