Chapter 92: Billionaire

Two days later.

“President Du, the factory next door has undergone its dust-free renovation, and the purchased equipment has already arrived. Liu Yaofeng led his team to complete the testing. However, we are still short of engineers,” Sun Hongming knocked on Du Qiu’s office door, with his voice booming and his stride energetic, radiating vitality.

A few days earlier, he had made a trip to the capital and secured the first order for garbage disposal equipment. Though the amount wasn’t huge, it was still a record-breaking start.

What was more critical was that, due to issues at Huading Group, subsequent payments had been put on hold, pending a complete review by the working group.

This resulted in an urgent shortfall in the company’s funds at the end of the month, with supplier settlements and employee payroll looming in the upcoming month.

Although the prepayment from Sun Hongming’s deal was modest, it was certainly timely.

As the general manager, having made headway into the sales of new products within a short time, it was unlikely for him not to feel a certain degree of pride.

“Sun Brother, you’ve been away for a few days. Have you forgotten? That is the production plant of the new materials company—it’s fully automated and unmanned. We won’t need too many maintenance engineers.”

Sun Hongming was momentarily stunned; he had been so busy surveying the market for garbage disposal equipment recently that he hardly paid attention to the status of this factory.

Having directly secured an order in the capital, it was natural for him to be eager to start production and delivery as soon as possible.

Now he was brimming with confidence in the garbage disposal equipment market.

Du Qiu had already completed the manufacturing of garbage disposal equipment and garbage transport carriages, as well as their preliminary trial runs—the results were indeed promising.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have managed to secure an order so directly.

When he returned and learned that the factory was ready for operations, he assumed it was for large-scale production of garbage disposal equipment and carriages.

Du Qiu had originally planned to produce the entire garbage transport vehicle, but considering the time required to obtain the license for manufacturing special vehicles, he instead designed the transport carriage.

This way, it could simply be placed on the flatbed of a truck and treated as cargo.

Later on, once the special vehicle license was obtained, production of the integrated version would not only be feasible but also more convenient.

“Haven’t we just signed patent licensing agreements with those three companies? Are we still going to manufacture carbon fiber ourselves?”

Du Qiu hadn’t been very clear when explaining the new materials venture, only mentioning that he had developed a brand new production process during his earlier work on materials analysis.

After continued experimentation, it was discovered that this process could successfully produce several new materials, carbon fiber being one of them.

Consequently, he focused on standardizing the production process and registering patents.

Of course, these patents belonged to the research center, as it was a personal sole proprietorship owned by Du Qiu, which also meant that they were entirely his property.

When Sun Hongming returned, he was surprised to hear about this development.

While his own hard-earned contract was worth only several hundred thousand yuan, Du Qiu’s invention for carbon fiber had secured a ten-year licensing fee totalling 3 billion yuan.

In other words, Du Qiu had become a billionaire overnight.

Unlike the paper wealth obtained from IPOs by internet companies, this was real cash flowing into the account.

It was just that recently, Du Qiu restructured the company, assigning all patents to the R&D center.

It was rumored that Rein Leinar had also established a research center in Germany, hinting at Du Qiu’s ambitious industrial plans for the future.

However, upon learning that all business related to the new material production line would be handled by Dream Technology, Sun Hongming was pleased.

This contract represented another significant income for Dream Technology.

Following the company’s restructuring, Qin Yun had already separated the financials related to different business sectors.

Currently, Sun Hongming was only aware of the financial status related to Dream Technology and the subsidiaries in the making, unaware that the new factory was intended for producing new materials and tools by Du Qiu.

Moreover, Du Qiu had yet to disclose the groundbreaking silicon-aluminum alloy; it was too revolutionary to reveal before the right moment.

To conceal the silicon-aluminum alloy, Du Qiu had employed an extraterrestrial process from his dreams to produce graphene.

Upon hearing Sun Hongming’s inquiry, Du Qiu clarified, “That’s not for producing carbon fiber, but for manufacturing graphene.”

Sun Hongming felt a profound admiration for Du Qiu’s ability to develop new material production processes—true talent stands out.

“President Du, you are incredible. Not only have you researched a new production process for carbon fiber, but you’ve also figured out how to mass-produce graphene.”

“Ha ha, looks like Sun Brother has also learned how to flatter. In reality, the production processes for both materials are quite similar. It was one breakthrough that led to a series of breakthroughs. Probably it’s good karma that brings good luck.”

Sun Hongming laughed, “Now that you’re a billionaire, we all hope to bask in your good fortune and get some good luck ourselves.”

“The money hasn’t hit the account yet; right now I’m just a shell of a billionaire.”

Du Qiu said jokingly, then thought for a moment and continued, “We have to focus on completing the automation lines we’re providing to those three manufacturers.

Everyone has been working hard this month, and we’ve also signed a joint venture agreement with Feiyu Technology. The subsidiary, Xingguang Precision, has been registered, and their funds have arrived.

Plus, with you opening up the market for garbage disposal equipment and securing the first order, the company’s finances should get some relief. Let’s distribute red envelopes to celebrate.”

Sun Hongming praised, “President Du, that’s a wise move. I’ll be sharing this good news with the entire staff shortly; I just wonder how much will be in these red envelopes?”

“They certainly can’t all be the same size,” Du Qiu replied with a smile.

Sun Hongming asked, “For the material production line equipment, the parts we produce ourselves shouldn’t be that many, right?”

“There are quite a few actually, but I’ve already designed the corresponding production lines which are also fully automated. The main workload, in fact, is that we need to send engineers to those factories for onsite assembly, calibration, and training services.”

Sun Hongming, after some consideration, seemed to remember something, “President Du, how will the production capacity for garbage disposal equipment be resolved?”

Du Qiu pointed outside the door, saying, “This workshop here will soon not need to house so many machining center examples, and the new materials production line will be moved to the factory next door.

The component parts for the materials production line and some parts for the garbage disposal equipment are interchangeable, which means these two production lines can be accommodated within this workshop.

The entire workshop will be re-planned and converted into a dust-free space, you should arrange for this.”

Sun Hongming nodded, “Rest assured, President Du, I will handle it.”

Du Qiu looked at Sun Hongming, adding, “I mentioned the other day, Sun Brother, that Dream Technology is the core enterprise in our intelligent manufacturing plans.

I hope the day will arrive soon when it surpasses Fak Company to become the world’s leading robot manufacturing enterprise.”

Sun Hongming smiled, “President Du, you’ve just upset the carbon fiber production industry, and now you aim to revolutionize the industrial robot sector.

Interestingly, the industry leaders who are being upset are from the country of Japan.”

Du Qiu also smiled, “This, on the other hand, shows that Japan has seized the high ground in multiple areas. No wonder they’ve been taking home so many Nobel Prizes in recent years.”

“I think President Du’s new carbon fiber production process might also be worthy of a Nobel Prize.”

“Let’s not joke about that,” replied Du Qiu, “However, the Nobel Prize is too politically charged for my taste. I’d rather stay away from it.”

Sun Hongming left in high spirits; he was about to send an email to all employees, encouraging everyone to give it their all at the end of the month to earn the sizable red envelope promised by Du Qiu.