Chapter 336: Deep Red Sweeps The Globe
Carl Schmitt played black, the Chinese engineers started Deep Red, the host hummed, and the terminal lights flashed.
His opening was the standard Sicilian Defense, something rookies who have only looked at chess scores but lack much practical experience all like to do.
But Deep Red couldn’t judge if he was a rookie or a veteran; it just mechanically made its own response, though this response seemed exceptionally agile.
The entire game lasted five minutes, and Carl was defeated. He didn’t feel frustrated at all; instead, he was thinking about the technology behind it, because Deep Red’s reaction speed was even faster than the Deep Blue he had seen in the same place two years ago.
“Is Deep Red greater than Deep Blue?
Is the Chinese Chess AI Program’s response speed even faster than America’s Deep Blue?” Carl thought to himself.
This was enough to shock Carl, this computer expert. Only now did he truly begin to ponder what the Chinese official had said earlier: Deep Red One was no worse than Model 85, and it turned out to be true.
Moreover, he noticed one thing: this time, China’s Deep Red only used eight large-scale computers in series.
After the win and loss were decided, enthusiastic applause rang out from the audience below.
The Socialism camp could also have large-scale computers and Chess AI Programs; for the audience below, mainly Eastern Europeans, this was very morale-boosting.
Of course, boosting morale was one aspect, and actual interests were another.
You know, IBM’s advanced computers were not allowed for export, and the entire Socialism camp had only China able to provide large-scale computers of this level.
What’s more, China’s large-scale computer performance had advantages.
This was a unique existence.
Just acting as a middleman for re-export trade could make a killing.
Moreover, judging from the products sold by Panda Electronics in the past, China had always taken the route of small profits but quick turnover. IBM’s Model 85 sold for five million US dollars, while China’s Deep Red One was at most two million US dollars; reselling them for four or five million would be easy.
This was real revenue.
Model 85 could not be bought at all in the entire socialism camp, while China’s Deep Red One could achieve stable supply. If a bit unscrupulous, not to mention four or five million US dollars, even more expensive could be sold.
Those who came here were all businessmen, and they quickly thought of this.
The crowd squeezed forward, and the scene was chaotic. Li Mingde asked if there was anyone else who wanted to come on stage to play, but no one cared; everyone wanted to chat with him, this Chinese official.
“Mr. Li, it’s me; we chatted here last year too. Can I talk to you alone?”
“I’m the vice president of West Germany’s Krupp company; I hope to talk to you!”
Similar voices came one after another, and business cards were stuffed into the hands of Chinese staff like they were free.
The trade fair organizers had already sent extra personnel here several times to maintain order.
“Everyone, please calm down, please calm down. Our staff will collect your business cards and contact you one by one later. Please allow us to complete the established process. In the afternoon, you can line up to enter the venue to visit our Deep Red One computer and the electronic spreadsheet program we developed.”
After Li Mingde finished speaking, the scene gradually restored order.
In the morning, there were five full games, and Deep Red won four. The only loss was the last game, where someone brought in a local Leipzig professional chess player who had won a national championship to win it.
At noon during the intermission that day, everyone who came to Leipzig for the trade fair was talking about one thing: Deep Red One from China.
“It’s really unbelievable. Before today, I never would have imagined that the world’s second truly meaningful Chess AI was born in China,” Friedrich said.
The three Schmitts gathered together. Friedrich was in charge of international affairs; he was very clear about the technology levels of various countries. As early as the 1950s, when China sent an international delegation to visit East German technology companies, he had received them.
At that time, the Chinese representatives seemed no different from hicks to him; they treated everything they saw like treasure, wanting to buy this and that, but as soon as they asked the price, the light in their eyes dimmed instantly, looking poor.
But when it came to talking about how the country would build its future, those hicks in his mind spoke eloquently, wanting this and that, from mineral smelting to machinery manufacturing, from national defense industry to chemical industry—anything you could think of, they wanted to make themselves.
What Friedrich hadn’t expected at the time was that they even knew about semiconductors, because they mentioned East Germany’s semiconductors, and then said their plan also included semiconductors.
At that time, Friedrich was just a grassroots official; he scoffed at this. In his view, the ideas were beautiful, but reality was cruel, and cruel reality would give these hicks the best lesson.
He didn’t need to say much.
But he hadn’t expected that later events would exceed his expectations. From the war on the Korean Peninsula to atomic bombs, rockets, ballistic missiles, China’s progress was like cheating.
Those were after all too distant, only seen on television and newspapers, and had little to do with him; at most, he would praise them a couple of times when chatting idly with Chinese descent immigrants around him.
The appearance of Panda Radios once again shattered his cognition. Chinese people could actually make such exquisitely designed electronic products. Later, he had to gradually admit that China’s consumer electronics products ranked absolutely first in the entire Eastern Bloc in terms of quality and stability.
They could even rival American goods.
Radios and portable calculators were tangible; Friedrich had to admire China’s speed of progress—it was really too fast.
In the blink of an eye, more than ten years had passed, and in many aspects, they had already caught up, even surpassing East Germany.
The Chinese representatives who came to the Leipzig Trade Fair every year showed change on them; the country’s progress was reflected in their bodies.
But this time, this was a completely different concept. China could actually make large-scale computers, and facing America’s Deep Blue Giant, they shouted the four words “far ahead.”
Based on his understanding of Chinese people’s cautious attitude, they couldn’t possibly not know what kind of international uproar saying “far ahead” would cause. Originally, you were just benchmarking, but now Deep Red One would be scrutinized with exceptionally strict eyes by all free world media.
Any problem at all would be ridiculed repeatedly, and media led by Pravda might not really speak up for you. The relationship between China and the Soviet Union was not that good, especially now with Lyndon Johnson trying to break the ice.
So Friedrich guessed that the Chinese side must have sufficient confidence to dare say “far ahead,” which couldn’t help but make him envious.
If East Germany had Deep Red One, the GDP and economic dominance pried open by the OGAS plan wouldn’t all belong to East Germany?
OGAS had also been piloted for a while, and the four Eastern European countries all realized that this thing was better than the original command economy management mode. It was still command management, but the precision was much higher, and the difficulty for subordinates to falsify data was greatly increased.
Now there was news from Moscow that under Kosygin’s leadership, OGAS would be fully promoted, with Moscow allocating 20 billion rubles to advance the project and take the opportunity to appease Czechoslovakia’s resentment.
He didn’t know if it was true or false, but Friedrich truly hoped to strive for greater autonomy and more resources for East Germany.
Back at the Leipzig scene, Friedrich had a pensive look, while Carl nodded very seriously: “China’s speed of progress is too fast. When the Panda Portable Calculator appeared, we realized that China had made a breakthrough in the semiconductor field.
But we didn’t expect that in just three years, China brought a brand-new large-scale computer; the difficulty was much greater than a portable calculator.
The progress of our four Eastern European countries plus Moscow together couldn’t catch up to China.
I have a feeling: are we too useless, or are the Chinese too perverted?”
Hermann had the best mentality among them because he was in trade. For a country in the same camp to have good goods like Deep Red One was unprecedented good news.
“This is a good thing. What we need to confirm is production capacity, to ensure that China’s production capacity is sufficient; we can earn too much from it.
Casual re-export trade would bring tens of millions of US dollars or even billions in profit.
Whatever price the Chinese ask, we can take it; reselling to other countries means at least thirty percent profit. That’s the influence of German manufacturing.”
As soon as he said this, Friedrich and Carl immediately understood.
It was simple: in this world, most countries’ impression of China was still stuck decades ago.
China’s large-scale computers? Many countries would instinctively reject them, preferring junk over Chinese computers, but East Germany was different.
Having been wealthy ancestors made a difference; China’s Deep Red One just needed an East German manufacturing label, and many countries would buy that German flavor.
Hermann continued: “France and England can take American goods, slap a label on them, and sell them to us at high prices. Why can’t we take Chinese goods, slap a label on them, and sell to Asian, African, and Latin American countries?”
Many businessmen on site thought the same.
Especially those Western European countries; free world countries had much more money. These countries could afford not only state-owned enterprises, governments, research institutions, but also many large private enterprises.
Like England and France, they even dreamed of using Chinese computers to counterattack America and IBM head-on; it was the Marshall Plan that made them hallucinate.
By the afternoon, the electronic spreadsheet demo was even crazier.
A total of eight machines, eight viewing spots; the Chinese booth was surrounded, entering one by one to visit.
(VisiCalc, born in October 1979, was also the world’s earliest electronic spreadsheet.)
And now, this title belonged to China’s spreadsheet, the direct Chinese translation of electronic spreadsheet.
Carl Haermes was the editor of the technology section of Neues Deutschland. Unlike West Germany’s many newspapers, East Germany’s newspapers were fewer and all under unified control from East Berlin.
There were no specialized technology newspapers, only separate sections in some large-scale newspapers, like Neues Deutschland.
The air was filled with the humming of machines and the excited whispers from the queuing crowd around.
The site already had a long line, with the queue length comparable to the China Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.
Haermes and his colleague Robert Tink stood in the middle of the line, watching the expressions of the exhibitors viewing the demo inside, which was also a way to pass the time.
Watching one by one enter, focus intently waiting for the introduction, then operate hands-on themselves, their faces changing from curious to serious—if not for the rule that each person could only stay inside for ten minutes, and those who came together could view one device jointly, Haermes seriously doubted if it would be his turn today.
It wasn’t until eight o’clock in the evening that it was Haermes’s turn.
What appeared on the screen was a grid-like interface, with numbers honestly staying in their corresponding table positions.
After the Chinese engineer’s explanation ended, they were allowed to operate it themselves.
Haermes and Robert sat together; Haermes spoke first to Robert: “This thing looks like an electronic ledger; it can actually update formulas in real time!
Imagine, no more manually recalculating the entire table.”
Robert said in shock: “Carl, you’re right; this isn’t a simple calculator. It uses rows and columns to simulate the blackboard needed for accounting.
Here, just press enter, boom! All dependent cells refresh instantly.
This software is too incredible, including the graphical operation interface, allowing ordinary people to use it directly for calculations.
As expected of the China that made the portable calculator!
I guess it can greatly simplify financial calculations, but I’m not sure to what extent.”
When they had only two minutes left after operating, the Chinese engineer standing nearby came over again:
“Gentlemen, ours also includes temporary storage function, meaning if you’re using the spreadsheet and suddenly lose power or the machine shuts down due to failure, after restarting, your previous operations will be saved.
When you reopen the machine, it will retain the data you entered earlier, no need to redo the work.
This guarantees the machine’s stability from another dimension.”
After leaving the dedicated booth for China’s Deep Red, the two fell into long silence. Haermes looked at the black-and-red poster floating above, which said “Deep Red, subvert your cognition!”
If you hadn’t visited Deep Red One on site, you wouldn’t understand at all what product this poster was selling.
Haermes thought to himself: China is even innovative in advertising. We in computer technology are not only behind West Germany, but now even substantially behind China—no, not just us; other countries are also behind China in this field.
Robert’s idea was simpler: “Carl, I think I’ve already seen the future!”
Haermes asked: “What future?”
Robert said: “Actually, China’s electronic spreadsheet isn’t that practical yet, because those buying large-scale computers are enterprises, and what enterprises need is its computing function. Using electronic spreadsheet for calculations is still a bit too simplistic.
But what if it could be made smaller?”
Haermes still didn’t understand: “Made smaller?”
Robert nodded emphatically: “Exactly, make the size smaller, like how China made calculators portable in the past. If they could stuff the electronic spreadsheet into a small desktop computer, what kind of scenario would that be?
I think every job position related to data would need to buy China’s small computer and electronic spreadsheet software—what a massive market?
Calling the electronic spreadsheet a killer app wouldn’t be an overstatement.
But on a large-scale computer, it’s at best icing on the cake.
Of course it’s useful, but not the most important.”
Robert’s sense of smell was very sharp; as a technology section editor, he immediately grasped the key.
The electronic spreadsheet itself was to generate buzz, to showcase China’s software development capabilities.
What China wanted was to sell hardware and also sell software—one fish, multiple meals.
Everything happening here was like a storm quickly spreading from Leipzig to East and West Germany, then to Europe, and finally sweeping the entire world.
Newspapers in every corner of the world were reporting that China launched a Chess Program called Deep Red, which could compete with Deep Blue and was considered far ahead of it.
China said Deep Red One was far ahead, but through media dissemination, it became Deep Red far ahead of Deep Blue.
This also made the public who saw this news associate it with the confrontation between the two camps.
“Comrade Li, regarding the agreement to deepen cooperation between us, what is your side’s view?” Gerhard Bell asked.
