Chapter 104: Exhibition Storm

Listening Sea Club, Room 1818.

“Damn, Big Fish, you’ve gained weight again! How many pounds is that now?”

Upon entering the room and seeing Du Qiu, Sun Hongming couldn’t hide his astonishment.

Du Qiu stood 1.76 meters tall and currently appeared rather round and hefty, probably weighing around 200 kilograms.

“I’ve already lost quite a bit, now I’m down to 96 kilograms.”

“Was it Xu Xiaoyu who asked you to lose the weight?”

Du Qiu replied with a good-natured laugh, “I wanted to slim down myself. You have no idea, the food in America makes it so easy to gain weight.”

“You’ve been fiercely battling it out on Wall Street and still managed to put on weight, that’s really something.”

The two exchanged pleasantries and soon began to drink.

Du Qiu recounted his experiences in America over the past two years and then sighed, “Now, domestically in America, they’ve completely started viewing us, Tang Country folks, with colored glasses.”

“Ah, I heard that Wall Street arrested a bunch of Chinese traders.”

Du Qiu said, “Exactly. They accused them of maliciously manipulating stock prices, but it’s all nonsense. If big money doesn’t manipulate the stocks, how would they make a dime?

With the amount of capital they move in and out, stock prices naturally fluctuate. I think it’s making a mountain out of a molehill, so I immediately came back to the country.”

Sun Hongming gave a thumbs up, “That’s good, a quick response. What do you plan on doing now that you’re back?”

“My father-in-law wants me to take over his real estate company, but I’m not interested. Considering the current situation of the property industry in our country, I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.”

“So what do you plan to do? Are you thinking about stirring up some storms in the domestic stock market? You might just end up inside (implying imprisonment).”

“I’m not playing with stocks. I plan to get into venture capital!”

“VC is not having an easy time either. The country is struggling with economic transition, and the likelihood of losing your investment is high.”

“How come I heard that you’re doing quite well nowadays?” Du Qiu, having finished a drink, said with an incredulous stare.

“Look at you, inquiring about me. I’m in heavy industry; the returns on investments are for the long term.”

“Come on, you can fool others but not me. I have a Master’s degree in finance.”

“So what exactly have you heard about my company?”

“I heard that your company has two star products. One is CNC control software and the other is environmentally friendly waste disposal equipment.”

As Du Qiu reached this point, with a smirk on his face, he sighed and said: “Alright, let’s be straight. I’m interested in the waste disposal equipment.

Do you know? Your American dealer is a client of my fund. I heard about your situation from him, and it really amazes me how life can be so strange.”

“The waste disposal equipment no longer needs investment…”

“Don’t say that. Your current promotion speed is too slow. You need to speed it up, and that requires money. My Da Jiang Investment is definitely the best investor.”

“I’m not planning to go public, and you still want to invest?”

“Invest, definitely. Just the dividends will be enough to make a profit.”

“If you really want to invest, then let me suggest another company and product for you to put your money into.”

“Ha-ha, I knew it, given our relationship, you definitely wouldn’t let me suffer a loss…”

“Autonomous driving.”

Du Qiu’s voice was abruptly cut off by these four words from Sun Hongming. After just a few seconds of silence, he exclaimed: “I wouldn’t dare invest in that; it’s a money pit.”

“If I tell you to invest, you won’t lose money.”

“Do you know how many autonomous driving companies have already burned through their money and closed down? This thing isn’t close to being mature for commercial application.”

“Trust me and invest. I’m telling you, in a year, autonomous driving will definitely be changed by me.”

Du Qiu was startled. His old friend’s words seemed a bit arrogant. That wasn’t like Sun Hongming at all. Could it be that this guy really has something up his sleeve?

“Bro, can you give me some insider information?”

“The key to autonomous driving lies in perception and intelligence; I already have a clear plan for both. In about a year or so, we can begin mature manufacturing.”

“What level are we talking?”

“Capable of racing, and guaranteed to win first place, that kind of level.”

“Darn! That strong?”

“It’s for my brother, I’m giving you a heads-up. The era of artificial intelligence is coming; you’d better be prepared.”

“Then I might as well invest in your artificial intelligence. Let’s call the company ‘Wisdom Technology’!”

“As you wish. But how much money do you have?”

“Hey, talking about money hurts our brotherhood!”

“Get out, why don’t you say that talking about brotherhood hurts the money?”

Sun Hongming has already been working on writing artificial intelligence programs based on the existing computer architecture, which will be first applied in the field of autonomous driving in the future.

There’s also the high-speed emergency braking technology, but unfortunately, Sun Hongming can’t access the alien civilization’s warships which would likely have the corresponding stress elimination technology.

By then, the vehicles that apply the autonomous driving technology will never collide with any pedestrians again!

The two continued to drink and chat deep into the night.

Golden autumn October, and the annual National Day Golden Week in Tang Country arrived as scheduled.

At the same time, the Magic City Industrial Expo kicked off.

Kosuke Yasushi, General Manager of the Tang Country region of the Amanda company from Japan, wandered between the various exhibition booths, occasionally listening to a product presentation.

But a sneer of mockery was always present at the corner of his mouth.

These Tang Country people are really good at boasting. This product has reached the world’s advanced level, that product has filled a domestic gap.

In reality, it either becomes something that reached the world’s advanced level years ago, or it fills an insignificant gap.

The thirst for success is a vice that this country never seems to shed. Could it be because of their vast territory?

Kosuke Yasushi shook his head, turned around a booth, and then laid eyes upon a somewhat familiar device.

Hey, isn’t this our own JN12-3D composite processing center? How could it appear in Tang Country? This is a product that’s banned from export to Tang Country.

With a few steps, Kosuke Yasushi rushed over.

At this moment, a crowd had gathered around this company’s booth, where a presenter was loudly explaining.

“Ladies and gentlemen, in a moment, this machine will begin processing a sample workpiece. You’ll see the whole process requires no manual intervention, and the precision of the machining is at the nanometer level.”

“Stop kidding, when did our country get such great equipment? Even if we had it, it wouldn’t be at this exhibition.”

“Young man, don’t talk nonsense. They’re about to demonstrate it on-site. Whether it’s a donkey or a horse, it’ll be led out for a walk soon.”

“Yeah, that’s right, don’t interfere with us watching the demonstration.”

“Look, look, the robot!”

“Wow, its movements are so precise!”

“Huh, this is interesting. Which company’s product is this?”

“Xingguang Precision, a new company.”

“Excuse me, sir, how much is this robot?”

“Not for sale? Come on, can’t you ask your leaders? Our company wants to order a batch, definitely no less than 200 units.”

“Let’s discuss this further. Please report to your leaders on our behalf, will you?”

……

Two people, unconcerned with the demonstration of the processing center, were pestering a sales representative on the side, relentlessly requesting to buy the handling robot.

Kosuke Yasushi, who was initially watching with a dismissive expression because he had seen at a glance that the machine only somewhat resembled their product,

found all other components were different, leading him to snicker at the Tang Country once again. It seemed like another company had seen their product and then made a presumptuous attempt at a copy.

It wasn’t the first time for Kosuke Yasushi to encounter such a thing, but in the past, it was always about copying products sold to Tang Country.

After all, reverse engineering can be done for copying.

It’s like the Toyota vans from his country, back in the eighties of the last century how many were cloned by Tang Country enterprises.

But when he saw the precision with which the auxiliary robot positioned the workpiece into the CNC machining center, his heart began to falter.

Such precision in moving robots was also found in his country’s Fakke Company, but to achieve such accuracy in motion was not easy.

You see, Fakke’s robots are mostly fixed on the production line, and their movements are pre-calculated.

However, that robot just now was definitely moving at random.

Kosuke Yasushi also noticed that it had neatly dodged a child who suddenly ran onto the stage!

Handling robot: Read and vote! Rewards are welcome too!