Chapter 41

Regardless of the buzz and the impact XlouS had on the outside world, everything was still operating as usual in XlouS’s headquarters in Hainan, southern China.

Today, a line of big trucks kept driving into XlouS’s headquarters.

Since XlouS announced on the day of the launch that it was spending 6 billion USD to build its own supercomputer, Intel’s head of Greater China rushed to the company’s headquarters the next day.

Apparently, this deal was worth nearly 1 billion USD. After a day-long negotiation, the contract was finally signed.

If this had happened three years ago, the deal would have been very difficult to make. Three years ago, the U.S. government banned its companies from exporting domestic technology to facilities related to Tianhe-2, the world’s fastest supercomputer. It was a policy that dealt a big blow to Intel and other U.S. hardware suppliers at the time. Greater China was a huge market and this time, another tech dispute had risen between the U.S. and China again.

The U.S. implemented a decree on the grounds that Tianhe-2 and Tianhe-1 were used for ‘nuclear explosive activities’, but this was simply a false pretext.

Over time, however, despite the potential military application of supercomputers, the U.S. government rarely, if ever, allowed its domestic companies to impose export restrictions on supercomputer-related technology. It was for no other reason than the fact that most of the components for supercomputer systems were readily available worldwide, and the shipping of these products was difficult to restrict, so eventually, the ban went away.

It was rare for a corporate company, especially a private one, to invest so heavily in a supercomputer. But for XlouS, having its own supercomputer was a matter of urgency. The fact that the company had almost booked the Tianhe-2 everyday in the past two years for the development of their product alone showed how great the demand for supercomputers was for them.

In addition, there was another important reason. It was about time for Sakura to have her own home. Clearly, Ren Hong wouldn’t let her continue living in the supercomputer. In the past, he was incapable, but things were different now. And with the completion of the headquarters that would host his own supercomputer, Sakura would also start to play her incomparable role. In the future, she would become the invisible housekeeper of the entire XlouS company, which would allow Ren Hong to grasp the exact information of the company at any time and ensure absolute control over the company. Not only that, but Sakura would also have an irreplaceable role in preventing technology leaks and commercial espionage. Every piece of technology of the company was achieved by an astronomical investment in research and development. Ren Hong couldn’t tolerate any theft of his company’s intellectual properties as it would undoubtedly be an immeasurable loss.

The company’s supercomputer would be named after the ‘L’ shaped building, where it would eventually be completed. This would be an exclusive zone where there would only be supercomputers! The entire building was 130+ floors, which looked like more components would be added in the future.

The supercomputer ‘L’ would consist of 40,000 nodes, each with two strongest Ivy Bridge-E, Xeon-E6-3296 microprocessors and three Xeon-Phi ones. Cumulatively, it would have 80,000 microprocessors and 100,000 Xeon-Phi for a total of 7.25 million computing cores.

The base data of Supercomputer ‘L’ would be almost twice as much as Tianhe-2, and it was apparent that ‘L’ would take the top position in the global supercomputer ranking, both in terms of peak computing speed and sustained computing speed.

Two months later, Supercomputer ‘L’ was set up successfully, and XlouS finally had its own supercomputer. On that very day, Ren Hong was inside the ‘L’ shaped building and the ‘L’ was about to begin its first computational test.

“Chairman, the results are in!” The staff reported with excitement. “With a peak computation speed of 1.276 billion times per second, a sustained computation speed of 869 million times per second, and excellent performance in double-precision floating-point computing, our supercomputer surpasses ‘Tianhe-2’ by more than two times, making it the world’s fastest supercomputer!”

Ren Hong nodded indisputably, at the same time saying: “This data is false. It is also very simple for the U.S. to build a supercomputer that is even more powerful than ours; it’s just that they don’t need to do that. Do you think the company’s future maintenance costs of hundreds of millions of dollars a year isn’t worth anything? But despite that, our company is still able to provide the amount of money. In the future, we will have to use the supercomputer in many areas. All the employees can apply for the use of supercomputer ‘L’, but some things are better done without it. Unsurprisingly, supercomputer ‘L’ may need to be expanded, but this is enough for now.”

“You’re right, Chairman. But no matter what, we should still be proud of these numbers,” The staff member smiled.

“That’s right. In that case, find an opportunity to announce the numbers to the public. Decide for yourselves.” Ren Hong also responded with a smile.

Work ended for the day, but Ren Hong didn’t leave. At that moment, he was alone in the ‘L’ shaped building’s supercomputer room. Countless component boxes were neatly and orderly arranged in rows. He opened the smart device he was carrying and said, “Sakura, scan the entire supercomputer and get rid of everything that’s questionable.”

“No problem, give me five minutes!” A childish, adorable voice sounded.

Ren Hong looked at the facilities with a smile and a look of contempt. It was apparent that he wouldn’t believe that Intel hadn’t tampered with them. He guessed that perhaps the other party thought he would be pleased with the result and wouldn’t suspect anything. To that, Ren Hong sneered and didn’t take things for granted.

Five minutes passed quickly and Sakura’s voice sounded again, “There are 837 monitoring windows hiding in different areas, but that’s all settled!”

Over 800?

Ren Hong’s mouth couldn’t help but twitch. “They sure are meticulous!”

“Well, Sakura, are you happy with your new home?” Ren Hong laughed, putting the unpleasant question out of his mind. Those who weren’t aware of Sakura’s presence would have thought that he had gone crazy and talking to himself.

“Finally, a new home of my own!” Sakura replied with excitement. Ren Hong smiled and added, “Sakura, prepare to connect with the company’s network and monitor the flow of information from all terminal databases. You’ll be XlouS’s great steward from now on!”

“In other words, Sakura is able to help Big Brother, right?” She emotionally inquired with some anticipation.

“Of course! Sakura is going to be my best and most irreplaceable assistant! You’re my most trusted person in the world, you know!” Ren Hong smiled. He had never treated her as an intelligent machine, but a personality with a soul instead.

“Great, Sakura’s so happy!” She exclaimed.

After arranging Sakura’s settlement, Ren Hong finally lay down a heavy burden. He knew very well that in the future, the company would face all forms of commercial spying—both internal and external. This issue had always bothered him and he wouldn’t feel at ease without resolving this issue, much less have the heart to develop new cutting-edge technology. But now, things weren’t the same anymore with Sakura monitoring the entire company’s operations behind the scenes 24/7. He was very confident that anyone who entered the company would immediately be in Sakura’s line of sight, which was equivalent to indirectly entering his field of vision. Trying to steal trade secrets in XlouS would be a difficult task.