Chapter 118: The Birth of the Star Ocean

As the senior leaders of Magic City affirmed Dream Technology during their inspection, the haze that once loomed over the company temporarily dissipated.

The so-called joint lawsuit filed by Japanese corporate enterprises against Dream Technology for infringement was skillfully steered by Liu Sichen’s public relations team to favor Dream Technology in the court of public opinion.

This was also due to the inability of the Japanese companies to produce substantial evidence to prove that Dream Technology’s ultra-precision machining center breached any intellectual property right.

Suddenly, Dream Technology’s statement was highlighted as if it were Huawei itself, catapulting the company into the status of another high-tech firm in Tang Country capable of resisting the stranglehold of foreign corporations.

As a result, public opinion online overwhelmingly praised Dream Technology with comments like:

“Dream Technology is mighty, fulfilling the dream of our great Tang Country to become powerful!”

“The Japanese are scared; they’re getting ready to make an unreasonable fuss!”

“Go check out Douyin; someone posted a video of Dream Technology’s industrial robot on display; it feels much stronger than Japan’s little yellow robots!”

“I’m just envious of the robot’s mechanical hand; it has six fingers. I lost my hand to a high-voltage electric shock in my childhood, and I don’t have a single finger.”

“The person above wants a Qilin arm, huh?”

“When can Dream Technology start selling robots?”

…

Amidst all the fuss, originally only well-known in the industrial sector, Dream Technology became known nationwide due to the infringement lawsuit initiated by Japan; Du Qiu’s name became even more familiar to the public.

However, beneath this famous name, would it bring benefits or drawbacks in the end?

While the apparent conspiracies seemed to vanish like smoke in the air, devious schemes were already brewing in the shadows.

Time flew by, and with the arrival of the year 2020, the grand research that Du Qiu was working on was finally coming to an end.

Shortly after the New Year’s holiday, on one night.

After ten o’clock, Du Qiu had once again sunk into the realm of dreams.

His consciousness had traveled to a far-off planet, many light-years away, a world over-exploited for its resources.

During this time, Du Qiu had completely familiarized and digested the situation of the Custodian, spending every night searching the Custodian’s vast database to study materials about artificial intelligence.

Previously, Du Qiu had started research into AI software and hardware; with access to the Custodian, he not only gained the Custodian’s intelligence program but also acquired some hardware technologies related to alien civilizations’ computers from the massive database.

Considering the astonishing computational power and massive storage capacity of the Custodian’s core, it gave Du Qiu an idea.

He quickly wrote and ran a simulation of some experimental environments from his own reality on Blue Star within the Custodian’s intelligent core.

In this virtual world, Du Qiu could subject the devices or production processes he wanted to replicate in reality to simulation tests first.

As long as the tests presented no significant problems, he could replicate the exact process in reality, making the process of imitating products from alien civilizations more efficient and faster.

In addition to simulating hardware replication, Du Qiu also created a simulation of the computing hardware system that exists on Blue Star so that he could rewrite the artificial intelligence program based on it.

Yes, he didn’t need to invent an AI program himself; instead, he could modify the Custodian’s intelligence program to achieve AI that Blue Star technology could support.

The immense computational power of the Custodian’s core helped Du Qiu complete the simulation operation test verification of the AI program.

During the over a month of this process in his dreams, Du Qiu discovered that it was an impossible task for the supercomputers on the actual Blue Star to support an AI program with strong AI capabilities.

Luckily, Du Qiu found a type of chip from the Fabricators that could be used as an intelligent chip.

What satisfied him most was that the manufacturing technology of this chip was very similar to Blue Star’s latest third-generation semiconductor technology—it could be considered an advanced version.

With the Custodian’s simulated environment verification, Du Qiu was able to advance software and hardware R&D at a rapid pace in reality.

Using the commercial supercomputing clusters in the actual research center to complete the scheme validation would be unimaginably time-consuming.

The supercomputer indeed is a multiplier for scientific research.

In reality, with impressive speed, Du Qiu completed the laboratory manufacturing of a new system of computer components, such as a new generation of chips, network transmission interfaces, graphics acceleration processing, and so forth.

Over the New Year’s holiday, Du Qiu had assembled and preliminarily tested a brand new supercomputer in his own laboratory.

Once the AI program in the simulated environment was successfully run, Du Qiu could deploy artificial intelligence on the supercomputer in reality.

“Master, the simulated environment is ready. The intelligence program is about to run.”

The voice of the Custodian’s artificial intelligence resonated within the core!

This was a new discovery by Du Qiu; he came across the Custodian’s artificial intelligence while researching its core programs.

The Custodian represented true strong AI, and Du Qiu had been puzzled as to why he couldn’t sense the presence of AI upon his arrival.

It turns out that there are strict regulations in the core program about arrivals; until summoned by the Master, the artificial intelligence is not to appear proactively after being occupied by the Master.

Du Qiu, who was researching the AI programs of alien civilizations, was naturally very curious.

However, he didn’t act rashly because the alien civilizations certainly had reasons for including such a restriction in the core code of artificial intelligence.

After understanding the Custodian’s intelligence program, Du Qiu added some code to the core code that would benefit him.

Only then did he summon the Custodian’s artificial intelligence, preventing loneliness in his dreams from then on.

After the artificial intelligence of the Custodian appeared, Du Qiu had many questions answered; he could ask the Custodian for rapid solutions, which was much faster than searching everything himself.

This was why the development of the new computer system and artificial intelligence had progressed so quickly recently, making him look forward to having AI assist him in reality.

In the dream, Du Qiu’s consciousness said: “Custodian, begin running the program!”

This artificial intelligence program was modified by Du Qiu based on the Custodian’s intelligence program, mainly for Blue Star’s existing silicon chip system.

From the Custodian, he knew that alien civilizations’ computer systems were not simply of one type.

In the entire manufacturing domain, all intelligent machines used a photonic quantum computing system, while in the domain of warship weapons, an even higher-level microscopic quantum computing system was used.

This left Du Qiu longing; just the manufacturing domain’s photonic quantum computing system already seemed so powerful, what could the microscopic quantum computing technology for space warships be like?

However, for now, Du Qiu could only observe the super warship responsible for the security alert outside the resource star’s orbit through the Custodian’s scanning system, sighing with desire.

After all, just the current photonic quantum computer technology of the Custodian was so advanced that he had no idea how long it would take to make it a reality.

Keep in mind that on Blue Star, the quantum computer technology has only just begun, and Google has daringly claimed quantum supremacy with just 53 qubits.

After all, scientists have theorized that a quantum computer with 300 qubits could theoretically exceed the total number of atoms in the universe.

Now look at the Custodian’s intelligent core; it operates on a quantum chip of 100,000 bits in hexadecimal!

No wonder such a single Custodian robot can manage and maintain such a large production base, coping with the production of so many products.

And such computer technology is only used in this manufacturing domain, which indicates that even more advanced quantum computing technologies are used on cosmic super warships that represent the pinnacle of a civilization’s technology.

Just by this one aspect, Du Qiu believed that this alien civilization must be above a level six civilization.

Indeed, even the wealthy have to economize; a civilization above level six will save where they can, and not all intelligent machines extravagantly use the same technology.

Thinking about it, it makes sense. Blue Star’s current industrial production lines are not using the best computer chips available.

It seems there’s still a long road ahead for his own learning!

While Du Qiu was filled with emotion over the heavy learning task ahead, in the virtual environment of the Custodian’s intelligent core, an embryonic form of artificial intelligence was born.

“Master, the intelligent program is successfully running; it needs you to name it!”

Hearing this, Du Qiu was very excited and quickly said, “Let’s call it ‘Star Ocean’!”

It’s getting close to the end of the month; dear readers, let’s hurry up with the monthly tickets!