Chapter 392: If They Can Go, So Can I
Sam Altman was completely distraught.
No, what are Chinese Companies thinking?
He had considered countless possibilities, whether Google or META, either could stick their oar in and cooperate with Intel or IBM.
But none of these posed a threat to OpenAI, after all, OpenAI is first-tier, and the gap between cooperating with the first and cooperating with the second or third is still very large.
His bottom line was 500 million, he wanted to squeeze 500 million US Dollars out of these two companies.
But he never imagined it would be Crimson Technology.
“Are they really negotiating on the Left-Right Brain Chip Architecture cooperation?” Sam Altman showed a suspicious expression.
Because of Lin Ran’s existence and the emergence of Crimson Technology chips, Pat Gelsinger had not yet resigned, he was still Intel’s CEO, and Chen Limwu had not become CEO, continuing to serve as an executive position.
“The relationship with IBM is that Intel will cooperate with Crimson Technology, and OpenAI can only choose IBM or fall completely behind in this competition.
Sorry, IBM won’t put out a single penny.
Since Crimson Technology is willing to cooperate with Intel, I believe Crimson Technology would also be willing to cooperate with IBM.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if Crimson Technology and the Blue Giant joined forces?” Dario said seriously.
The negotiation ended hastily, Sam Altman failed to bleed Intel and IBM dry, and instead was cornered by IBM.
It has to be said that Chinese people understand Chinese people the most.
Originally, Lin Ran didn’t plan to give Intel an opportunity, but Chen Limwu changed Lin Ran’s mind with just one meeting:
“Mr. Lin, Nvidia can sell castrated version AI computing cards to China, why can’t China sell castrated version computing cards to America?”
That’s right, Chen Limwu had already defined it.
Even if China makes the right brain chip extremely well, it’s impossible to sell it to America.
European and American Countries, Japan, Korea, all these have big question marks.
The White House could directly order a ban on global companies purchasing it.
Nvidia is still jumping through hoops to do business in China, so why shouldn’t Chinese Companies find ways to do business in Europe and America?
Chen Limwu’s solution was to cooperate with Intel. Compared to Nvidia, Intel is a proper Manchu banner American technology company, only slightly inferior in status to Boeing and IBM, not the same as an American company like Nvidia that doesn’t even qualify as Eight Banners.
“Mr. Lin, Intel’s first-generation Loihi chip uses a 14nm process, which perfectly matches China’s fully domestic semiconductor industrial chain.”
Whether Huawei’s 7nm or 5nm, they still use ASML’s lithography machines, which can’t be considered fully domestic.
Lin Ran was a bit embarrassed, he gently reminded: “Mr. Chen, China’s fully domestic is 28nm.”
He thought to himself, there’s also one pending verification, the pending verification fully domestic 28nm.
This Dragon’s Roar that started from 2020 has been roaring until now, even Zhihu’s anonymous answer function has been shut down, and still no results.
Lin Ran even privately asked Shanghai’s relevant authorities about the progress of Shanghai Microelectronics’ self-developed 28nm lithography machine, the answer was it’s being advanced, and when asked for specific progress, they didn’t know.
Precisely because of this, he wanted to pull all of Nikon’s technology from Japan, saving as much time as possible.
As for training the team, they could still train the team on the basis of Japanese technology.
Chen Limwu’s smile remained unchanged: “28nm, 28nm and 14nm are no different, only 14nm apart, small problem.
We at Intel are even better at designing and manufacturing 28nm lithography machines.
General Manager Lin, this is what I think: we will put all production and manufacturing of right brain chips in domestic China, creating employment, tax revenue, and technology for China.
And export the products to Europe and America.
We can also design multiple versions at the same time, the most advanced for domestic use, castrated version for abroad.
The enemy can come, and so can we.”
This phrase “The enemy can come, and so can we” moved Lin Ran.
Chen Limwu is a Chinese person from Malaysia, where Chinese traditional education is well preserved.
Right, Nvidia selling castrated version computing cards carries a bit of humiliating nature.
Respect in leather jacket yellow behavior can’t cover the fact that this behavior is essentially wanting to make money while not taking you seriously.
So why can’t we do the same?
As for the risk of theft, it’s exploration from scratch anyway.
Because cooperating with Intel also allows opening two different technical lines.
Chen Limwu’s persuasion was quite effective and indirectly dealt a fatal blow to OpenAI’s wavering.
“We are willing to grow together with China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry, and in this process, give opportunities to China’s local industrial chain as much as possible.” Chen Limwu said.
The meaning of this sentence is that China is cultivating its own full semiconductor industrial chain, currently at 28nm which is still a bit short.
The local semiconductor industry most needs orders and production capacity.
With production capacity, it means your equipment is running, your materials are entering the production process, and your entire chain can move.
As long as the entire chain can move, problems can be solved bit by bit no matter how many.
Why has TSMC achieved substantial monopoly status in high-end chips in recent years? Isn’t it because they took one step fast, then every step fast, nurtured by Apple’s high-end capacity?
Now Intel not only provides cooperation on the technology end, they also have on-site Loihi chip manufacturing experience, and are even willing to keep the production capacity in local China.
Lin Ran really couldn’t think of a reason to refuse.
As for the White House ban, Chen Limwu meant that Intel would handle everything, so Lin Ran could rest assured.
In addition, META, Google, XAI each made moves.
In META’s headquarters, Zuckerberg eyed Nilanjan with a scrutinizing gaze.
“Nilanjan, why didn’t you tell us about the Left-Right Brain Chip Architecture?” Zuckerberg was expressionless, looking a bit like a robot at this moment.
Nilanjan had made great contributions to META over the past year, with the assistance of numerous Chinese descent elites, allowing META to catch up to the first echelon with performance similar to Google’s large model.
This barely satisfactory performance secured his position as META’s chief scientist, avoiding a return to New York prison.
But the problem is, facing the new concept thrown out by his own student, Nilanjan was completely clueless: I’m in NLP, not hardware architecture design, how would I know about Left-Right Brain Chip?
“Sorry.” Nilanjan’s apology was just finished.
Zuckerberg interrupted him: “No need for sorry, you must admit that this concept was thought up by you and Lin together, you have complete thinking, you have prototype diagrams.”
Nilanjan thought, huh? “But I.”
Zuckerberg said: “No buts, you do have it, anyway, our external promotion narrative must be consistent.
We’re not fighting Lin for founder status, we just want to hitch a ride.
You just need to say in public that Randolph discussed this concept with you, and you know some technical details, that’s enough.
Randolph wouldn’t expose you over something like this.”
Zuckerberg wanted stock price, to make META’s stock price soar again.
Capital market profits are much faster than painstakingly developing a company, otherwise why spend 100 million US Dollars to hire you as chief scientist?
Isn’t it because you’re Lin Ran’s mentor, so we can borrow some heat?
Nilanjan said: “Okay!”
He didn’t mention what if Lin Ran really exposes it, at this time, wishful thinking took the upper hand.
One reason Nilanjan knew mentioning it was useless.
The second week, after attending the White House inauguration ceremony, Pat Gelsinger flew straight to Shanghai, and under the gaze of numerous reporters, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Pony:
“I believe we will create the world’s first AI computing power matrix based on Left-Right Brain Chip Architecture.
I have confidence in Intel, and equally in our partner, China’s Crimson Technology!”
Far away in San Francisco, Sam Altman who saw the news image nearly smashed the television, so much so that later he had to pinch his nose and choose to cooperate with IBM. Fortunately, IBM was willing to bear the R&D investment for Left-Right Brain Chip Architecture, though he didn’t squeeze out cash, he still got some advantage.
China is actually willing to cooperate with Intel? This was something he never imagined.
After the press conference of Intel and Crimson Technology reached the Q&A session, all the reporters in the audience raised their hands.
Everyone had too many questions to ask.
“General Manager Ma, previously General Manager Lin mentioned in a live broadcast that the right brain chip would cooperate with Chinese Companies, and he named five Chinese Companies, including Huawei and Cambricon. Now that your company has decided to cooperate with Intel, does it mean Chinese Companies couldn’t meet the requirements?
Do they still have opportunities later?”
This was also the question Chinese reporters cared about most.
“I want to answer that our cooperation with Chinese Companies is still advancing, the right brain chip co-developed with Intel is specifically for the overseas market. I believe Left-Right Brain Chip Architecture will be a classic architecture in the computer field, like Von Neumann.
Global companies will all need right brain chips, Intel is a great cooperation partner, for the domestic market, we will still reserve it for Chinese Companies.”
Pony’s unspoken subtext was that abroad won’t allow sales, so we can only find an intermediary to cooperate with, Intel has the technical foundation and is the best choice, we can profit in the shortest time.
“General Manager Ma, will the chips supplied domestically and abroad differ like Nvidia’s?”
“This is not clear yet, we will fully respect market rules and comply with relevant laws.”
What does respecting market rules and complying with laws mean?
Why can’t Nvidia sell the most advanced computing cards? Isn’t it because of laws?
So if China also has corresponding laws, we can only say sorry and sell you the castrated version.
The Chinese reporters in the audience understood the implication and applauded enthusiastically, even whistling.
Foreign reporters were baffled, not knowing what Chinese people were excited about: “No, Kevin, what are you happy about?” A foreign reporter asked a domestic reporter he knew.
Kevin smiled: “In the Chinese context, ‘will’ means ‘won’t’, ‘won’t’ means ‘will’.”
“Huh? Sorry, I still don’t get it.”
“You’ll get it later.”
The dialogue between the reporters and Pony continued.
“General Manager Ma, does General Manager Lin already have specific technology? When can we see an AI model based on Left-Right Brain Chip Architecture?”
“I think soon, very soon, optimistically this year.” Pony smiled.
The more awesome Crimson Technology is, the stronger Tencent’s ecosystem erosion of other internet giants relying on AI.
Previously beaten into disarray by Douyin’s ecosystem, now finally able to hold ground and even counterattack.
“I want to tell everyone, the AI model based on Left-Right Brain Chip Architecture will be more human-like, the first thing we do should be something like an electronic girlfriend product.
Directly on WeChat, everyone can customize their own electronic girlfriend, I believe this will be a very, very interesting product.”
“General Manager Ma, can you elaborate?” The reporter wouldn’t let go of such explosive news.
“We named the model based on Left-Right Brain Chip Architecture ‘Zhiren’, it will be more human-like.
But the Zhiren model will occupy a different ecological niche from Crimson Technology, our plan is on WeChat, with a dedicated Zhiren chat box, like current agents, it’s your friend, you can talk to it anytime.
Electronic girlfriend is just one use, ordinary friends also work.
Then you create its background, growth experience, skills, city, etc., all defined by you.
The second world will have such a character, like everyone has played in The Sims, all characters created by users will live and interact in the second world.
Humans in the real world will influence it, and interactions in the virtual world will also affect it.
For example, if you define it as a worker, then in the virtual world it will have colleagues, friends, work, etc., if it’s criticized by the leader in the virtual world, it will complain to you.
Behind Zhiren is an entire world, this second world created jointly by us and users.
Perhaps it will be the cornerstone of the future metaverse.”
The reporters in the audience looked at each other, originally thinking today’s issues were limited to Crimson Technology and Left-Right Brain Model, but Pony threw out this surprise.
The concept itself isn’t surprising, there are already existing products for AI-composed virtual communities.
After all, when GPT came out in 2023, Stanford and Google teamed up for Stanford Town, a virtual world of 25 virtual digital people coded by ChatGPT.
They had different identities, personalities, and ages, living together in this town, carrying out activities like humans, and communicating with each other like humans.
(Once viral across the web, okay maybe just viral for a bit among tech followers, Stanford Town)
But relying on WeChat, created by Crimson Technology and Tencent, the scale will be countless times larger than Stanford Town, secondly based on Left-Right Brain Model, it will perform more human-like, and finally, based on past large model emergence phenomena, who knows what remarkable thing might emerge this time.
What if this plan really, as its name suggests, produces a Zhiren in the AI field?
“General Manager Ma, when will this plan launch?”
“General Manager Ma, are you worried about ethical risks?”
“What if a real human-thinking AI emerges, how to define it, is it human or program, will your company choose to destroy it or nurture it?”
“General Manager Ma, is this your company’s path to general AGI?”
The press conference was directly led astray.
Reporters from external networks chased questions on ethics and morality, believing Crimson Technology’s plan has unimaginable huge risks, hoping they stop.
After the press conference of Crimson Technology and Intel ended, the biggest beneficiary was a company called Tom Cat, this company with 20 billion market capitalization’s only notable point is their Tom Cat IP copyright.
But this cat’s last popularity was 15 years ago, now whenever it appears in news, it’s always prefixed with “once viral”.
Why could such a cat hit the daily limit, become the top in East Money’s stock bar, with retail investors shouting for trillion market cap slogans?
“Who would refuse having such a cute cat in the second world?”
Because of this, market cap directly hit the daily limit, sealed by over 2 million hands.
This is the magical A-shares.
If you can’t think of it, capital can’t fabricate it.
With successive statements from Crimson Technology and OpenAI, AI field’s technology giants all took sides, directly pushing Left-Right Brain Chip Architecture to a climax.
Because OpenAI bundled with IBM, Intel bundled with Crimson Technology, media jokingly called it the clash between Crimson Technology and Deep Blue.
Time Magazine’s cover was blue and red giants’ fists colliding, the blue giant with Stars and Stripes pattern, the red giant a splice of China national flag and Stars and Stripes.
Amid the outside disturbance, Lin Ran had no time to care.
However, there was one news he didn’t notice himself, it was Young John Morgan who personally told him:
“Professor, my father will serve as Special Assistant for East Asian Affairs, he hopes to visit you personally.”
“Huh? Hasn’t your father been a dandy for decades? Why is this person about to be buried still making a fuss?” Lin Ran asked.
Old John Morgan’s sudden appearance actually made Lin Ran think of Jenny, how Jenny in this world is doing, a question he hadn’t asked.
Though Jenny in this world, if still alive, would be at least over eighty.
At this age, unless a vampire, better to cherish the memory than meet.
But John Morgan’s appearance still rippled Lin Ran’s heart, at least he had to ask about Jenny’s situation in this spacetime.
