Chapter 1049 - Subverting the Entire Industry

1049 Subverting the Entire Industry

After Koch saw Intel’s “Silver” micro-architecture, he thought that the spotlight of the integrated circuit design conference was destined to be shining on Intel. However, that changed after he saw Huawei’s carbon-based chip technology.

Forget about being the spotlight of the IEEE conference.

The second the presentation was over, news about the Dragon One and “carbon-based chip” spread to all areas of the industry.

It was like an earthquake that had erupted in the semiconductor industry.

Huawei had made a major breakthrough in carbon-based chip technology!

The first series of chips using carbon-based technology, the Dragon One chips, would be used in mid- to high-end servers, directly competing with Intel’s industry-leading Xeon chip series!

People couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

On the other hand, the stock market also shocked everyone.

Even though Intel had just released their “Silver” architecture, their stock prices were dropping to the floor...

Everyone came so suddenly.

Koch, Qualcomm’s vice president, was hoping for another possibility, which was that there was no carbon-based chip at all, that Huawei was being too optimistic. Or maybe, HiSilicon had misread an email from their research partners.

But the probability of this was low.

Also, that would mean that Professor Lu, the corresponding author, hadn’t even read the thesis.

That was obviously unlikely.

It wasn’t just Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD, the entire semiconductor industry had begun to suffer because of this change.

Everything came so suddenly.

No one could have expected this report to happen.

Most people didn’t even know that the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study had a project like this. The vast majority of people only vaguely knew about China’s semiconductor industry clusters. Only a few people heard about Huawei’s HiSilicon moving up the industrial chain.

However, no one could have predicted the carbon-based chip based on these rumors.

The effect caused by the collapse of the semiconductor industry soon affected the Nasdaq, and there was a pessimistic sentiment on the technology industry, including mobile phones, computers, and servers.

No one expected that chip giants such as Intel and Qualcomm, who firmly held the top positions of the industrial chain, were suddenly dethroned.

The global semiconductor industry was crumbling...

Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.

Dean’s office.

Huawei CEO Wang Zhengfei was sitting on the sofa drinking tea. He smiled and told Lu Zhou about the events happening in the semiconductor world.

“The sales department at HiSilicon has been getting orders left and right, and some calls have even reached my office.”

HiSilicon sales strategy was to give priority to Huawei’s internal orders, then followed by domestic orders, and finally overseas orders.

Judging from the current demand, the demand for chips from Huawei alone would take the semiconductor base in Jiangcheng half a year to fulfill.

Even if people wanted to buy the chips, they couldn’t.

However, this didn’t mean the downstream manufacturers would give up.

Because of the 20W power consumption and the excellent heat dissipation performance of carbon-based chips, several supercomputer centers in China had asked to buy the carbon-based chips, no matter what the cost was.

Lu Zhou knew what it was like to be bombarded by phone calls.

“Good job, you did well.”

“Me?” Wang Zhengfei smiled and said, “I didn’t do anything, it’s the scientists like you that did this.”

Lu Zhou: “This is mainly because of Professor Wu, he’s the leader of this project.”

Wang Zhengfei: “Speaking of which, Professor Wu is about to become an academician, right?”

Lu Zhou nodded and said, “Yeah, I recommended him, it should be fine.”

Wang Zhengfei smiled and said, “If you say it’s fine, then there’s really nothing to worry about. I was going to ask if there’s anything I can do to help, but it seems like I was overthinking things.”

Lu Zhou smiled and paused for a second before he spoke.

“Actually, there’s one thing I don’t understand.”

Wang Zhengfei put down his teacup and said, “Oh? Looks like I have the honor to help Academician Lu. Ask away.”

Lu Zhou: “Why did we have to present the thesis at the IEEE conference?”

Wang Zhengfei smiled casually and said, “Before we open the floodgates, we have to measure the pipeline pressure. Before we launch a product, we have to release the research and observe the industry’s reaction. If there are any problems, we still have time to fix them. Also, we’ve been working behind closed doors, they don’t even know we’re researching this.

“It’s like how everyone thought you were working on fourth-generation nuclear fission technology. But after a year and a half of silence, you suddenly solved controllable fusion energy. The industry might not even believe you, your partners might not even trust you.”

Lu Zhou frowned and said, “Who cares about them?”

Wang Zhengfei smiled and said, “Good question, we shouldn’t care about them! Sooner or later, manufacturers will realize that we have a piece of treasure on our hands, but that will take time. This isn’t like nuclear fusion, we can’t continue on with our doors closed. We have to redefine the semiconductor industry and break the western technology barriers.”

This wasn’t just about carbon-based chips. If they wanted to redefine the industry, China would have to beat the west by surprise.

Lu Zhou frowned and said, “Oh, so how were the pipeline measurements?”

Wang Zhengfei smiled and said, “They were exactly as expected! The entire semiconductor industry is afraid of what will happen when we release our chips. The next step is to respond to their fears and organize a product launch. What do you think, Academician Lu? Are you interested in saying some words at the launch?”

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, “Not interested, I’ve done too many reports recently. Not to mention, I’m only doing the theoretical side, I don’t know a lot about the actual chip. You should find someone else to do the product launch.”

“Haha, you’re over-complicating things. You being on stage alone is enough.” Wang Zhengfei smiled and said, “How about just being there? It’s in Jinling anyway.”

Lu Zhou hesitated for a bit before speaking.

“... Okay then.”

After all, it was in Jinling, so he wouldn’t have to travel far.

Suddenly, his phone began to vibrate.

Wang Zhengfei took out his phone and looked at Lu Zhou.

“Wait a second, I have to answer this.”

Lu Zhou: “Is it fine for me to be here?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine.”

The phone call lasted for 30 seconds.

All the old man said was “okay” and “I understand”.

After Wang Zhengfei hung up the phone, Lu Zhou asked, “What good news is it this time?”

Wang Zhengfei put his phone back into his pocket and said, “The IEEE withdrew our paper.”

The two made eye contact and laughed.

One of them was laughing awkwardly.

The other was laughing mischievously.