Chapter 572 - 543: Supporting the Future (Part 2)

Manufacturing is the foundation of the industry, followed by the healthcare industry, which also belongs to a higher standard of technology.

The basic medical products of the International Gene Cooperation Corporation are two: Artificial Blood based on Lizard Serum and an immunosuppressant using Transgenic Lizard Biliverdin.

Both belong to the same production line, with the former being the major demand. Conservatively estimated, the global annual demand is one billion liters. If each year they supply 50% of the people, along with an average combination with the immunosuppressant, the cost per liter would be about 200 US dollars, bringing the total sales to 100 billion US dollars.

Next is the medical products market, starting with medical Prosthetics provided to the disabled and physically impaired, enabling them to have labor capabilities not inferior to normal people. Around 30 million people globally need Prosthetics, and if 20% of these people use Prosthetics each year, with an average expense of 3000 US dollars, it equals a market of 18 billion US dollars.

Following that is the market for Artificial Skin, targeting those with skin defects and diseases due to accidents, incidents, and official duties, or congenital issues. Considering these cases alone, an estimated 10 million people worldwide need such products. Assuming that 50% of them use Artificial Skin annually, with an average cost of 2000 US dollars per person, it results in a market of 10 billion dollars. The market for cosmetic and skin surgery is not Lille’s target potential market, but it is foreseeable that this market is not small.

Lastly are the brain-computer interface supplements for mental health treatments and devices aimed at patients with mild mental disorders, reducing symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and cognitive decline, significantly reducing the worsening speed of untreatable diseases like dementia.

Frankly, there’s hardly anyone in this society who doesn’t occasionally get tired or anxious. The market for mild mental disorders is extremely broad. If they slightly modify the scope of mental disorders, this market could potentially have three hundred million patients globally of varying degrees.

Assuming each year, 5% of the mental disorder patients and 10% of cognitive decline patients use the brain-computer interface, that is a market of 20 million people, each device costing 2000 US dollars, and medical services 1000 US dollars, making it a total of 60 billion US dollars.

Thus, applying these technologies purely in the medical field alone results in a market of 188 billion US dollars. According to the estimation that every 10 million in sales generates one employee, this would create over one hundred eighty thousand jobs.

In contrast, if calculated that an average of every 500 patients requires one doctor or caregiver, then over one hundred twenty thousand healthcare workers would be needed.

Estimating that each person supports a family of four, this would affect 1.2 million people and would improve countless patients’ quality of life and bring many more quality laborers.

The core elements of production, such as the second-generation Prosthetics Artificial Muscles, Blood production cloned organs cultivation, etc., will be controlled by the International Gene Cooperation Corporation. However, distribution, logistics, and terminal applications can be completed by these existing medical giants.

This is no small market, but just a hint of sweetness is enough to drive them crazy.

Rocksen would definitely covet this market, but unfortunately, he can’t squeeze in. The transgenic technology in humans is only perfected in the International Gene Cooperation Corporation, and the number of his employees is decreasing day by day. Even the Government would weigh the city’s labor pay level, and the homeless can’t afford health insurance. Now everyone is afraid of their city getting hit by a major blow.

Having wealthy employees is high-tax revenue, and to attract employees of the Atlas Group, cities like Detroit or New York are of course willing to use Bloom Company’s ctOS urban construction solution. Taxes are again turned into construction funds into Bloom Company’s account, into health insurance funds into the International Gene Cooperation Corporation’s account, into money for buying vehicles and other electronic products flowing back into the company...

For society, money stuck in any part of the system is a liquidity risk. When it smoothly and efficiently flows through everyone’s hands, the world would continually transform.

This initial calculation shows that just these two segments will provide nearly three million people with jobs, stable lives, and the consequent service and light manufacturing employment are countless. It can almost be said that once fully deployed, give it another two or three years, the livelihoods of tens of millions of people will be tightly linked with Atlas.

The livelihoods or lives of tens of millions of people directly related to Atlas mean that the whole world will listen to Lille every time he speaks in public, even if it’s in a whisper.

As for the future market value of Atlas?

Indeed, speculators might want to make a rough estimate and then come to some astonishing results: Even if only less than 10% of the shares are traded on the market, Atlas’s market value is already nearing one hundred billion.

If all are listed... it might become the second company in human history to break the one trillion market value, perhaps as soon as 2010.

But some wise people know: sometimes they estimate the market value of economic entities like the United States just for fun.

Those without money want money, those with money want something else, the situations of Rocksen and Atlas can no longer be judged based on history.

The attendees at the conference were immersed in the business plan provided by Lille. Honestly, the holographic projection technology, and even the future showcased by the New Future District, are enticing, especially in this volatile era where even things of great volume seem to be teetering in the economic downturn.

But when Lille’s vision shifts from detail to macro, from one amazing technology to an advanced city, a desirable lifestyle, a future that captivates them, they also focus their worries on the fundamental issues:

Energy and resources.

This also concerns all partners, resources are manageable since Africa is inherently a land of wealth, but investors dislike redeveloping land, the high risk and large initial investments could easily result in them falling behind in competition and disappearing altogether.

They prefer harvesting over risks, but Atlas has already shown their resistance to risks by helping the African Union sink a competitor’s aircraft carrier.

It is now time to display the preliminary results.

New York is the financial center of the world, where resources come from the global market, but Mount Kilimanjaro is not, and the African Union is a political entity that Mei Country has officially ordered to gradually blockade.

The New Future District was like a model unit, but the developer’s capabilities...

Lille reached the center of the exhibition. Suddenly, guests wearing head-mounted displays discovered that everything around them had changed, transforming into the extensively promoted Zhu Ya City online—

A group of unenlightened native Africans, unemployed workers, ivory tower students and researchers, and ambitious management crowded into the world’s most... primitive places to develop the imagined treasure lands.

Honestly, before actually seeing it, they all thought it was some kind of high-level video editing technique used in the fake advertisements they used to like before the advertising laws came out.

But now they had started to face the reality: Atlas had the capability to develop Africa, and the African Union had the ability to ensure stability.

As the holographic scenes were written, they saw a bigger, more perfect future city where pollution-free electric vehicles raced down roads, where wind turbines and solar panels covered the hills, where an extensive network of electric and internet facilities sprawled across the plains, and where they saw...

Civilization.

New York once was the center of the world, building soaring skyscrapers, running trendy cars on its streets, introducing new lifestyle after lifestyle. Meanwhile, some places were still burning in war, starving people could consume the flesh of their kind, and a cruel nature knelt before an indifferent Emperor, pitiful, lamentable, and hateful.

But now it had aged, forever stuck in a semblance of rapid development under the greedy division, even though Atlas had already done much, yet there still were discordant old elements occasionally appearing on the streets:

Across from the New Future District, Manhattan once seemed dazzling, now it just appeared as a poor old man unable to let go of the past, always boasting about his former glory while awkwardly standing in the twilight of Atlas, pretending to be decent.

Now, the United States was like those places of old, conflict might not have escalated to such tragic conditions, yet pressures from Rocksen and financial crises left everyone gasping for air.

"Africa has everything we need, it has copper, cobalt, iron, bauxite, inexhaustible wild fruits and grains, strong winds, rushing water, warm sun, and even sufficient petrochemical raw materials to support industrial production."

The explored mineral resources and detailed data appeared before the people, but Lille knew these were no longer important.

No matter how profit-driven the people here were, those who could appear here were the most determined, those who ultimately prevailed in countless competitions to arrive here.

These people would not reject a proposal, a chance to cast aside conflict, oppression, and helplessness, to go to a rich and stable new world, to create the future.

These scenes were meant not just for the people present, but also something Lille wanted to say to the entire world.

This proposal was not just irresistible to those present, in fact, no one could refuse it.

The President had his speech to give, and Atlas’s had to be wider, farther reaching.

[Little Octopus: Big brother, our attention has surpassed the President and the United Nations.]

Lille silently nodded and continued his final speech:

"But... we know, this is just one city, I believe you might question, can wind, water, and the sun really support such immense energy consumption?

The answer is, indeed not enough, thus Atlas has its own nuclear technology, which I believe you all have seen—

A controlled nuclear fission technology far surpassing other fission technologies, environmentally friendly and efficient.

But ladies, gentlemen, children, we know that the wind, water, and sun heating the solar panels all come from one thing, something that has more, stronger, and longer-lasting energy than heavy element fission."

The sun overhead.

You should paint the pie when everyone believes what you’ve said before.

The scene shifted from the vast African landscape to the sky, focusing solely on the sky’s sole resident.

"The sun." Lille, like them, turned to face the sun, "Soon we will be able to hold the stars in our hands, and then many more new worlds will await our exploitation.

But first, we must clarify one thing: Earth is not yet so poor that we need to engage in fratricide to ensure survival.

The Titans (Atlas) will support a future for you."