Chapter 335: Twenty Years Of Earth-shaking Changes
In the original spacetime, China began participating in the Leipzig Trade Fair from 1951 and continued until 1965. During this period, the scale of China’s exhibition hall was second only to the Soviet Union.
(Exterior of the Chinese pavilion at the 1954 Leipzig Trade Fair)
(German women appreciating exhibits in the Chinese pavilion)
However, unlike the original history where China could only exhibit porcelain, silk, tea, and other traditional staples, in this spacetime, China’s technological content is much richer.
Benefiting from a series of consumer electronics products led by the Panda brand, China is an unignorable player in the consumer electronics exhibition hall at the Leipzig Trade Fair.
It is even more important than East Germany itself.
They are also the only country that can compete with the free world in the electronics products exhibition, although in the past it was not as good as America, but for East Germany, being better than West Germany is enough.
(1965 Leipzig Spring Trade Fair, dedicated consumer electronics exhibition area)
This time, China made a grand show, with high-level officials conducting preliminary communication and negotiations in advance. The East German side also attached great importance, dispatching Deputy Minister of Trade Gerhard Bell to personally welcome them.
Of course, behind this, besides valuing China’s claimed big surprise this time, there is another very important point: East Germany hopes to probe China’s real intentions.
To put it more bluntly, ever since the war on the Korean Peninsula in the 1950s, China has been unable to conduct normal trade with the free world and must rely on East Germany to carry out trade.
On October 10, 1950, China signed the Trade Exchange Agreement with East Germany, and in 1951 supplemented it with the China-Germany Trade Agreement. According to the agreement, China exported food, textiles, and minerals to East Germany, while East Germany was responsible for exporting industrial equipment to China.
But this was just the beginning, and after the first war on the Korean Peninsula, China’s dependence on East Germany increased. East Germany established a dedicated Chinese export company in East Berlin to handle re-export trade related to China.
At the 1956 spring trade fair, the Chinese delegation achieved a trade volume of 17 million US dollars.
China even used the Leipzig Trade Fair to connect with West Germany. In November 1956, West Germany’s Krupp company sent representatives to China, and again in the summer of the following year. The newly established China bought mechanical equipment from Krupp for the first time.
During this period, in 1957, Ji Chaoding led the Chinese delegation to attend the Leipzig Trade Fair, and on the way also visited the Hanover Fair, toured various places in West Germany, negotiated with companies such as Siemens, BASF, Bayer, and Mercedes, and promoted West Germany’s abolition of the agreement stopping trade with China.
Ji Chaoding may be relatively unfamiliar, but the Gold Yuan Voucher should be more familiar; the Gold Yuan Voucher was promoted under Ji Chaoding’s suggestion.
In Chen Lifu’s memoir “Lessons from Success and Failure,” there is a dedicated section on Ji Chaoding titled “Ji Chaoding’s Conspiracy to Ruin the Country Succeeds,” believing that Ji Chaoding was like the Zheng state sent to help them build the Zhengguo Canal.
In 1959, China signed a contract worth 97.5 million rubles with European companies, including two cement plants and 32 power stations.
By the 1960s, China’s demands gradually upgraded; they wanted to obtain optics, electronics, and precision instruments from East Germany via the Leipzig Trade Fair, but this proposal did not receive approval from Yanjing.
After 1965, China did not send delegations to the Leipzig Trade Fair again for a long time.
This spacetime is different; the delegation led by Li Mingde arrived as scheduled and brought a “big guy.”
Another very different point is that rejoining GATT and America allowing trade with China again means that China’s portable calculators have always been sold to America through General Computer Company. In the meantime, East Germans have always wanted to figure out one thing: whether China still needs East Germany to act as a re-exporter.
Moreover, the stronger China’s consumer electronics industry, the bigger the cake the re-exporter can get.
In the past, the emergence of the Panda series radios and portable calculators had already caused the scale of East Germany’s Chinese export company to grow more than tenfold, and this was still based on many Chinese products being produced and sold domestically.
East Germany really does not want to give up such a big piece of cake.
This is also the reason why Deputy Minister Gerhard Bell personally came out.
“Comrade Li, this is?” Gerhard Bell asked.
Li Mingde said proudly: “China’s Deep Red One.”
Gerhard Bell repeated: “Deep Red One?”
Li Mingde explained: “Our large-scale computer equipment.” He said “large-scale” with particular pride. “The overall architecture is 32-bit, supports 8-bit byte addressing, 32-bit and 64-bit floating-point computation, and uses a brand-new architecture.
In terms of performance, it is not inferior to America’s System 360 Model 85 launched in January this year.”
System 360 is a series with a very large number of models.
Like the earliest Model 65, this year’s Model 85, and IBM also announced Model 25 this year. Model 25 is a low-end model, specifically for small and medium-sized users.
There is also Model 95, a special custom version for NASA.
Of course, Model 95 was not publicly announced, so Gerhard Bell doesn’t know about it, but he knows Model 85. Forget East Germany; even in West Germany, you can’t see this thing. He has only seen it in magazines.
West Germany can buy it, but because it was just launched, production capacity is limited, so West Germany can’t get it at all.
For a long time, East Germany could only buy low-end models of IBM System 360, like 40 or 30.
Anything above level 50 couldn’t be bought. According to Cold War historians, until 1970, the entire East Germany had only 12 low-end IBM System 360 computers.
Gerhard Bell could no longer care about his image; he screamed: “Are you sure?”
Portable calculators are certainly important, but since China made them, consumer electronics companies in various countries have started to imitate them. Not to mention America, England, Japan, East Germany—everyone is making them.
It’s just a difference in whether the functions are complete, how many decimal places the calculation precision reaches, and whether the appearance is exquisite, but IBM System 360 is different.
In the current world, it is unique.
At this time, in the entire special-purpose computer market, IBM occupies about 70% market share. The other main seven competing manufacturers are nicknamed the seven dwarfs, implying their small market share and weak strength; even united, they cannot defeat the Blue Giant.
And if China can really produce a large-scale computer with the same performance as System 360 Model 85, this has extraordinary significance for the entire Eastern Bloc.
Everyone in the computer field will no longer be constrained by America, and overall strength can be improved.
In the 2020 spacetime, this is like China’s domestic companies unable to buy Nvidia’s most advanced graphics cards, even their overseas subsidiaries finding it hard to buy, and then suddenly a Vietnamese manufacturer emerges at China’s consumer electronics exhibition claiming they can make a GPU comparable to Nvidia H200.
The impact of Li Mingde’s words on Gerhard Bell was about the same.
Li Mingde grinned: “Comrade Bell, besides Deep Red One, we also brought Deep Red this time.”
Gerhard Bell repeated: “Deep Red?”
Li Mingde said: “A chess AI comparable to Deep Blue. The free world has Deep Blue, so I think we need Deep Red too. It will be exhibited at the Leipzig Trade Fair tomorrow! Let the world see that we are not inferior to them in high technology.
In short, all doubts, I believe Deep Red will dispel them all!”
Deep Blue’s English name is not dark blue, but deep blue.
“Deep blue vs deep red?” Gerhard thought to himself.
The Prague Spring did not affect the scale or liveliness of the Leipzig Trade Fair.
A few American and Western European companies reduced their exhibition scale, but this does not affect the overall situation. From the transaction volume in the original spacetime, it still maintained a scale of 2 billion East German marks.
Of course, in this spacetime, because of the atomic bomb-level product Deep Red, the transaction volume will definitely far exceed 2 billion East German marks.
Scattered protesting intellectuals and students around Leipzig University also could not affect the fair’s holding as scheduled.
The East Berlin side repeatedly emphasized that this is a symbol of peaceful trade and has nothing to do with war.
In East Germany’s landmark building, under the huge glass dome, stalls are densely packed, and the exhibition hall is as lively as usual.
In the most watched consumer electronics exhibition hall, China occupies the central position. All visiting representatives have already received the news early: China is going to showcase their most advanced large-scale computer.
That’s right, you didn’t hear wrong—it’s not a portable calculator, it’s a large-scale computer, the same kind of large-scale computer as IBM’s big thing.
China, a country that has always been an agricultural nation and only in recent years has slowly established an image of having some prowess in consumer electronics, now surprisingly pulls out a large-scale computer.
Currently, there are not many countries that can make large-scale computers.
This is still based on the outside world not knowing that China’s thing is targeting IBM System 360’s latest and most advanced product; the surroundings are already crowded with audience.
Hermann Schmidt, Karl Schmidt, and Friedrich Schmidt stood side by side at the entrance, waiting for the Chinese booth to open on time at 9 o’clock.
It is said that China will give a small presentation at the opening, then let everyone enter.
Standing outside, they can see these large black machines placed side by side, with engineers bustling back and forth.
Friedrich Schmidt said: “It’s really unbelievable; Chinese people have started doing artificial intelligence.”
The surname Schmidt is really too common in East Germany, just like the name Jianguo was very common in China at the founding.
Hermann Schmidt, Karl Schmidt, and Friedrich Schmidt all have the surname Schmidt, but they have no blood relations between them, and their jobs are worlds apart; they are connected privately because of common things.
Hermann Schmidt was previously the procurement manager of East Germany’s state-run department store company. When the Panda brand radio first debuted, he placed the first order and has since maintained long-term cooperation with China. China’s consumer electronics products have always been the best sellers in state-run stores.
Benefiting from being the first to cooperate with China, his cooperation with China has continued to this day. He can get good goods, which has helped him a little in rising from procurement manager to high-level executive in the state-run department store company.
Karl Schmidt is an executive at East Germany’s Robotron computer company. They have been responsible for developing computers needed for OGAS in the past, but they were just assisting; the specific work was still done by the Moscow side.
The last one, Friedrich Schmidt, is an official in East Berlin responsible for international cooperation.
All three of them learned the news in advance from Gerhard Bell.
Karl nodded: “Yes, if it is really as the Chinese claim, something that can rival Model 85, then the biggest difficulty of the OGAS plan will be solved.”
Hermann corrected: “Not just OGAS, we have too many places that need this kind of large-scale computer, including data statistics and computation in the background of state-run stores, banks, insurance, steel, shipbuilding, etc.
We no longer need to try buying their backward stuff from England or France. Leaving aside the high prices, they break down frequently, and when they do, they have to be shipped to London or Paris for repair—fast is one month, slow is half a year. We’ve had enough of such computers.
When China sells you a radio, they specially leave a maintenance team in East Germany. England and France sell us such expensive large-scale computers, yet they are still so arrogant!”
The state-run department stores of this era are not only for the public but also responsible for collecting and solving enterprise demands.
So they are also involved in large-scale computers.
Karl laughed: “That’s because whether France or England, their computer companies are not real computer companies. The better ones import semi-finished products from America for processing, the worse ones directly import from American computer companies, change the logo, and sell to us.
ICL, you know, the English computer company that merged in recent years from ICT, EEC, and Elliott Automation. Why is their System 4 highly compatible with System 360? They tell us it’s based on RCA Spectra series design with substantial modifications—what do they mean by substantial modifications?
Isn’t it just importing American components and assembling themselves? And they call that self-developed?
The English have the nerve to look down on our computers?
And France’s Bull, now Bull isn’t pretending anymore and directly changed its name to CII-Honeywell-Bull.”
As an executive at an East German computer company, Karl looks down on English and French manufacturers. Thinking of their disdain for Eastern Bloc computer products during exchanges makes him angry, because in his view, aren’t you all eating America’s leftovers? What’s there to be proud of.
The reason it’s said that CII-Honeywell-Bull isn’t pretending anymore is because Honeywell is an American computer company, and France’s Bull has now directly imported components and technology from America, imports parts and assembles, even openly telling the world that we import from America, so what?
These countries’ computer companies are all re-exporters.
Schmidt said: “Of course I know. I hope China’s computer can really surprise us.”
As industry insiders, they can feel that China’s progress speed in recent years is very fast; the transistor radios launched each year have improvements, and the portable calculators even lead the trend, but they still hold doubts about large-scale computers.
Because this thing is really too special; Moscow can’t do it, East Berlin can’t, Kiev can’t—why can you in Yanjing do it?
However, Friedrich has heard some news from East Germany’s Zeiss, saying that China has very rapidly increased precision demands in the optics field. As a technocrat, he knows the meaning behind it.
Raising precision requirements also means elevating your technical strength.
At nine o’clock in the morning, it opened on time. The pre-prepared podium came into use at this moment, and Li Mingde stepped onto the stage, with a laid red carpet under his feet.
He tapped the microphone, and the surrounding crowd had already gathered.
This row of large machine equipment is quite eye-catching.
China’s poster is already up: “Your large-scale computer doesn’t have to be IBM; Deep Red One will be a better choice.”
“Hello everyone, I am Li Mingde from China. Here, I want to introduce to you our flagship product for this year’s Leipzig Trade Fair, and also the culmination of New China’s science and technology field as it approaches the 20th anniversary of founding: Deep Red One.
This is a large-scale computer. We have faster computation speed than IBM’s Model 85 launched this year, nearly 3 MIPS per second, faster memory access than Model 85, includes time-sharing function internally, virtual memory optimization, provides a complete set of embedded scientific computing tools, uses our original graphical operation interface. It is a product superior to Model 85 from hardware to software, far ahead!”
Heaven knows how much effort he, as a trade association secretary-general, put into mastering these professional terms.
The speech script was written and rewritten. During the writing process, a high leader emphasized to him that you must compare with IBM to quickly establish a direct impression in consumers’ minds. And during his own writing, he suddenly got inspiration and thought of the phrase “far ahead.”
During internal rehearsal, this phrase worked well whether spoken in Chinese or German.
As soon as this was said, the audience erupted in an uproar because Model 85 is not outdated; it is a new product just released this year with a single unit selling price of up to five million US dollars.
China’s processor performance is stronger, memory concept more advanced, memory read speed faster, and even embedded with scientific computing tools—this is really unbelievable.
After China’s portable calculator was born, the concept of scientific computing became widely popularized: only addition, subtraction, multiplication, division is simple calculation; including some elementary functions is called scientific computing.
Li Mingde looked at the shocked white people below the stage—almost all white people here; Japan and Korea would not come to Leipzig Trade Fair—and felt not pride, but emotion.
Twenty years is not even enough to say seas turn to mulberry fields; twenty years is just four five-year plans.
After four five-year plans, China went from only being able to sell porcelain, tea, and silk in the past to now being able to sell the most advanced computer equipment, a five-million-US-dollar device.
Such a small thing can sell for five million US dollars. Back in 1956, their total trade volume was only 17 million US dollars. He was there then, not yet deputy secretary-general, just an ordinary staff member on a business trip. Now, the 8 Deep Red One units he brought are worth 40 million US dollars.
If this is not progress, what is? If this is not earth-shaking change, what is?
Li Mingde’s inner excitement was overflowing; he continued:
“At the same time, regarding compatibility issues, all future Deep Red series computers will be compatible, providing free software and data migration for customers, no need to reconstruct data!”
This is also the most important reason why the IBM System 360 series dominates the current market. With other computers, changing equipment means rewriting software; System 360 series supports cross-model compatibility.
China’s Deep Red series goes even further, even making data compatible.
This caused another exclamation and discussion below the stage.
Li Mingde continued: “Paired with Deep Red One is an electronic spreadsheet software that supports massive data processing, allows users to perform more complex data calculations. Later, during the visit, specific engineers will demonstrate to everyone.”
Karl, Hermann, and Friedrich looked at each other; electronic spreadsheets are really too advanced—this thing won’t appear until Apple’s II in 1979.
Hermann said: “Is it like I understand, it can put tables on the computer?”
Karl shook his head: “I think probably, but we have to see it to know for sure.”
Li Mingde continued: “Two years ago, IBM showcased Deep Blue here, a chess program. Today we brought Deep Red.
It has stronger playing ability than the Deep Blue of that time; it is a chess AI program independently developed by China. Welcome audience below the stage to raise hands to register and play against Deep Red!”
Hands raised below the stage were as many as a forest.
Obviously, every attendee wants to witness China’s chess AI.
“Good, then let’s invite this comrade up.” He pointed at Karl Schmidt.
Hermann standing next to him pushed him: “Congratulations.”
Karl smiled bitterly and went on stage because he is not good at chess.
The vertical signboard has chess pieces attached with magnets, seats arranged; after Karl sat down, the opposite side was empty.
Obviously, he is to play against the machine.
Every move of the game will be synchronized to the outside signboard.
The audience held their breath, while Karl took a deep breath, preparing for this match between an East German human and Chinese artificial intelligence.
