Chapter 172: The Lithography Machine is Finally About to be Finished!

The chaos in the Yingjiang Country stock market caused by the hacker intrusion incident, and the subsequent large-scale riots, lasted for more than a month.

The final result—

Yingjiang Country claimed to have caught the culprit, a long-famous hacker who, suffering from a terminal illness and feeling desperate about life and dissatisfied with the world, had carried out this attack.

This calmed the anger of all parties somewhat.

Moreover, as time passed and under the official's forceful suppression, the dissatisfaction in everyone's hearts could only be suppressed, and the matter slowly faded away.

However, this disturbance planted a thorn in the hearts of many, leaving many investors skeptical of the fairness of the Yingjiang Country stock market.

……

In the blink of an eye, November arrived.

Autumn departed and winter came; Tianjing City, located in the north of Long Country, began to cool down earlier than other places, truly entering the cold winter.

Daytime temperatures were in the single digits, and at night, they dropped directly to around zero degrees Celsius.

Even though he had experienced it once last year, Su Xin still felt that the winter in Tianjing was much harder to endure than in his hometown, Baohe City.

After getting out of the car, during the half-minute walk in the underground garage, Su Xin couldn't help but wrap his thick wool coat tighter around himself, only unbuttoning it once he entered the elevator lobby and felt the warmth of the building's air conditioning.

"Click!"

The elevator door slowly opened, and Su Xin and Wang Zhao walked in one after the other.

Inside the elevator, the warmth of the air conditioning was even more pronounced, making one feel as if they had suddenly traveled from winter to a warm early spring.

Su Xin took off his coat, waved his hand to decline Wang Zhao's attempt to help with the clothes, draped them over his own arm, and smiled lightly:

"No need, I can do it myself."

Wearing a thin casual suit, he felt his whole body lighten significantly.

Su Xin's mood couldn't help but become cheerful as well.

Soon, the elevator reached the 26th floor.

Su Xin stepped out of the elevator and walked into the company amidst the respectful greetings of the staff.

Secretary Feng Haifeng came up to meet him, took the clothes from his hand, and said respectfully:

"The executives are already in the conference room."

"Alright."

Su Xin nodded slightly, soon arrived at the conference room, and sat down in the main seat.

Today was the quarterly executive meeting.

Liu Qingli and the others reported on the group's development status and future plans, as well as the business progress and revenue data of each subsidiary.

Su Xin listened silently.

After encouraging everyone, he said: "Starting from today, recruit a large number of engineers in the Lithography Machine manufacturing industry, including mechanical design, optical design, automatic control, installation and maintenance, etc. We need to recruit at least three hundred people."

"It's fine if they don't have relevant industry experience; after all, Long Country hasn't been working on the Lithography Machine manufacturing industry for long, and there aren't many senior engineers in the field."

"I need to recruit a sufficient number within a month, and I will train them personally."

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone in the conference room was stunned.

Recruitment was a small matter; with Tianqi Group's current asset scale, let alone three hundred senior engineers, even if they recruited ten or a hundred times that number and offered the highest salaries in the industry, they could fully afford it.

In fact, the number of senior engineers at Tianqi Energy Company alone was far more than three hundred.

The most critical thing was the deep meaning behind Su Xin's words, which gave everyone a shocking guess.

Liu Qingli asked hurriedly: "Boss, has the research and development of the Lithography Machine succeeded?"

If the Lithography Machine R&D hadn't succeeded, how could Su Xin possibly recruit so many engineers?

This was clearly the rhythm of preparing for mass production!

But Su Xin shook his head:

"Not that fast."

Before anyone could show a look of disappointment, he continued: "It will probably take another month or two to complete."

Everyone couldn't help but gasp.

The Lithography Machine was one of the most complex and cutting-edge technological crystallizations in modern industry, hailed as the pearl on the crown of industry, and the cornerstone industry of this information age!

Its difficulty was so high that no single country could achieve complete self-research and self-production.

And besides the difficulty, there was another critical issue—the technological barrier!

Because the current Lithography Machine industrial chain was quite mature, and the technology was also quite mature, a few countries held the core technology patents necessary for Lithography Machines.

For others to achieve a breakthrough, it wasn't just about breaking through all the technologies related to the entire Lithography Machine industrial chain.

It also required avoiding the patent barriers set by those countries and forging entirely new paths in every core technology.

The entire industrial chain had to be re-pioneered!

This kind of difficulty far exceeded the capacity limit of any country.

And yet.

Everyone watched as Su Xin plunged into the Lithography Machine R&D Laboratory, and after several months of hard study, he continuously broke through one technical difficulty after another, constantly approaching the finish line of success.

Now, it was finally going to be done?!

The Advanced Lithography Machine, born only from the fusion of the cutting-edge technologies of the world's most advanced developed countries, had actually been conquered by Su Xin single-handedly?!

Even for the executives who had great confidence in Su Xin, and even though everyone had long been mentally prepared for this, they were still shocked to the point of scalp numbness.

Su Xin ignored their strangeness and continued calmly:

"Lithography Machine manufacturing is a quite complex industry. Even if I break through all the technical difficulties of the entire upstream industrial chain, the training of relevant talent is also a big trouble."

"With over one hundred thousand parts to be produced, it will take at least dozens of top engineers with rich experience spending a lot of time to install and debug."

"And there are simply too few such top engineers in Long Country."

"Therefore, Xuewei, try to be as flexible as possible when arranging recruitment. Do not set rigid requirements for applicants. Even if their academic qualifications are insufficient or their experience is lacking, as long as they have talent, intuition, and perseverance—as long as they are excellent in any one aspect—they can be admitted."

"Ability and experience are actually secondary; the most important thing is potential, because I will spend time specifically to cultivate them. I hope these three hundred people can become the future pillars of Tianqi Core Technology."

"The primary goal of this recruitment is to ensure the quantity; there must be at least three hundred people!"

In fact, if he didn't feel the venue was insufficient, he would even want to hire one thousand people at once, directly establishing the future core team of Tianqi Core Technology Company in one go.

The foundation of Long Country in the lithography machine manufacturing industry is still too poor; even if the entire industry were combined, I am afraid there are not many senior engineers who could meet his requirements.

Therefore, he must not only solve the upstream supply chain and design the Advanced Lithography Machine, but also personally cultivate talent related to lithography machine manufacturing.

Liu Xuewei nodded earnestly:

"Understood! I will discuss the specific recruitment plan with President Jing as soon as possible."

President Jing, named Jing Mingdong, is the president of Tianqi Core Technology Company under Tianqi Group.

Since Su Xin requested that the recruitment plan be as flexible as possible, focusing mainly on testing potential, she naturally could not assess applicants according to normal procedures, but instead had to customize an examination plan based on relevant skills and knowledge.

Su Xin attached such importance to this recruitment that she, as a subordinate, naturally dared not be negligent.

Su Xin nodded and added: "President Jing, in addition to recruiting personnel, the equipment and materials needed to manufacture the lithography machine must also be purchased in advance."

"I will summarize them in the next few days; you arrange the orders and purchases at that time, and simultaneously coordinate with the various companies in the industrial park to have them prepare in advance and coordinate their production capacity ahead of time."

"If there are no surprises, two months from now, the first Advanced Lithography Machine belonging to Tianqi Group can officially begin manufacturing."