Chapter 172: Intelligent Machinery Laboratory

The 20T hard drive is precisely the trump card Sun Cheng has thrown out.

He has investigated, and in the real world, only a few hard drive giants like Seagate have the capability to manufacture hard drives over 20T; however, if one considers the issue of cost, only Seagate's 10T hard drive, which has currently begun gradual large-scale production, can barely be considered a qualified product.

Because its institutional estimated manufacturing cost exceeds two hundred and eighty dollars, the North American retail price can already be pushed down to the four hundred and sixty dollar price point that the public can accept.

It is not like the 128T/SSD hard drive prototype once exposed by SanDisk Laboratory, which is said to have cost over seventeen thousand dollars just to produce.

The large-scale production technology for 10T hard drives is not yet fully mature; the laboratories of hard drive giants like Seagate might possess hard drive technology with capacities larger than 10T, but it should not be seen within three to five years. After all, the next few years will be the golden age for 10T hard drives.

Throwing out a 20T hard drive at this time, Sun Cheng's intention is very clear.

My new technology is very mature, and I have the ability to manufacture it even without your participation, Nanjing University of Technology.

The several hard drives on the table—the small ones are not even half the size of a palm and are only the thickness of three one-yuan coins; the 20T hard drive is undoubtedly the largest, being the size of an adult's palm, and even its thickness exceeds one and a half fingers wide.

But compared to all similar products on the market, these hard drives brought by Sun Cheng are much thinner and smaller.

Professor Hong Lei and the other professors from the School of Electronic Engineering—which of them is not a theoretical master in the domestic semiconductor, integrated circuit, and Chip fields? After crowding around, the few of them each picked up a hard drive and stared closely at the casing for a while. Unfortunately, after failing to detect any trace of a brand, they hurriedly said to Shen Peiyuan: "President, may we borrow your computer?"

After speaking, several pairs of eyes stared fixedly at the laptop on the office desk in front of them.

To verify the authenticity of these hard drives, the simplest method is to directly verify the storage capacity of the hard drives.

There is no professional testing software or tools in the office, but although one can use some means to tamper with the memory data displayed by the hard drive, trying to show off such low-level trickery in front of experts is truly laughable.

Shen Peiyuan looked at the hard drives held in the hands of the professors, and his heart could not help but feel moved.

In these two days, he has also checked a lot of information in this regard, so he also knows what a company that masters new hard drive technology means!

Market and huge profits!

This investment is different from the startup project support of Nanjing University of Technology. University project support, to put it bluntly, is just giving you a sum of money at the beginning plus some support for space and equipment. It is based on the idea of casting a wide net to catch fish, and the level of support is at most only a few tens of thousands of yuan.

If the project is successful, the returns will naturally not be small; direct donations of money and goods, indirect improvement in reputation, and guarantees for graduate employment will all be there.

However, failure does not have much impact on the school.

Looking at the entire Nanjing University of Technology, since the inception of the startup project support, a total of only four or five hundred projects have been approved, but the cost paid by Nanjing University of Technology for them is only about ten million.

To be honest, this amount of money is not even as much as the monthly budget of a research institution directly under Nanjing University of Technology, but through the process of elimination, it still successfully incubated more than a dozen enterprises.

Although none of them have a market valuation exceeding hundreds of millions, they still brought good word-of-mouth to Nanjing University of Technology and solved some employment difficulties.

If just an innovative enterprise with a market valuation of less than a hundred million is like this, then if this young man in front of him has really invented a new hard drive technology, the future is indeed limitless. Perhaps it is the next hard drive giant like Seagate, Western Digital, or SanDisk. But even if it only has one-tenth the scale of those three, that is still a giant enterprise with a market valuation exceeding two billion dollars. If Nanjing University of Technology can seize the opportunity, it might be able to profit handsomely along with it.

With a sudden thought, he first nodded to the several professors, pushed the laptop on the office desk in front of them, and signaled them to use it as they pleased.

At the same time, his eyes could not help but look at Sun Cheng, and his face also carried a bit of seriousness.

"Student Sun Cheng, right... Regarding the hard drive matter, the professors will verify it later. I heard from Xu earlier that you want to cooperate with the school on the technical issues of the hard drive. Can you talk about it in detail?"

It must be said that this new president, who could kill his way out of a pile of competitors to win the position of president of Nanjing University of Technology, is indeed not simple. Even though his peripheral vision kept glancing at the several school professors who were constantly fiddling with the hard drives in front of the computer, no change could be seen on his serious face.

Sun Cheng narrowed his eyes slightly. The other party kicked the ball back to his feet in the blink of an eye. This is indeed a good calculation: firstly, he can take the opportunity to probe his bottom line, and secondly, he can regain the initiative.

He could not help but look at the other party. The indifference in his eyes that seemed to see through everything gave Shen Peiyuan the sudden illusion that he had been completely seen through.

Resisting the discomfort, he was considering whether to speak again, when Sun Cheng suddenly spoke up and replied, "Our requirements are very simple. We need the school to give us a Laboratory qualification, and help our company put in a good word at the Nanjing National Supercomputing Center. In exchange, within half a year, I will fully transfer the 10T hard drive related manufacturing technology to the school, and within a year, including the 20T hard drive and new read-write technology, all can be transferred to the school..."

After finishing, he looked at Shen Peiyuan once again.

To say the least, the conditions he offered were actually not as good as one might imagine.

Don't look at the fact that the largest capacity hard drive currently on sale is only 10T. In fact, the Three Giants of hard drives—Seagate, Western Digital, and SanDisk—each have the ability to immediately manufacture hard drives of no less than 100T. For example, Western Digital launched a 16T hard drive large-scale production plan after Seagate's 10T hard drive went on sale, it's just that the cost could not be brought down.

Even so, judging from the decline of current HDD mechanical hard drives and the development trajectory of SSD solid-state drives, the possibility that hard drives under 10T will be largely phased out and 20-40T will become the new market mainstream before 2020 is extremely high.

Therefore, what Sun Cheng is taking out to trade is nothing more than mass technology that will become popular in a few years.

In comparison, he holds the black technology of Cybertron hard drives in his hands, and the cost of hard drives made with this is extremely low. When Sun Cheng was in the 【Transformers】 world, he had Atlas design a 100T hard drive. If produced on an assembly line, the cost could actually be controlled to within one hundred dollars.

He would never take out the real good stuff to trade.

Shen Peiyuan was indeed greatly moved after hearing this. He looked at the young student in front of him and secretly laughed in his heart, "Still young after all."

A Laboratory qualification is indeed not easy to apply for for ordinary enterprises, but for a top-tier science and engineering institution like Nanjing University of Technology, it is not a difficult matter. Under the condition that the materials and procedures are complete, if he personally comes forward to lobby, it could even be approved in less than half a month.

And the Nanjing National Supercomputing Center is the largest supercomputer research center in the country. As one of the initiators, Nanjing University of Technology is also the main technical provider for the Nanjing National Supercomputing Center, so it naturally has considerable say.

Moreover, the bulk of the supercomputing center's external procurement is CPUs, GPUs, motherboards, and memory. If there is a better choice, who would continue to foolishly purchase expensive foreign products with far inferior performance?

And it is true that Nanjing University of Technology is a national higher education institution, but there is no law stating that a school cannot own its own industries. In fact, not only in China, most universities abroad own their own industries, and the more influential the comprehensive university, the more enterprises and companies it holds under its name; Nanjing University of Technology is no exception.

Therefore, the technology transfer promised by Sun Cheng made his heart thump with excitement.

Shen Peiyuan is neither greedy for money nor lustful, but he has a special fondness for power.

He knows very well that if a world-class hard drive enterprise is added under Nanjing University of Technology during his tenure, not only will his reappointment as president of Nanjing University of Technology be more secure four years later, but he might even be able to go a step further.

At that moment, he had a plan in his heart!

He hurriedly looked at the three professors, including Hong Lei, who were still busy in front of his laptop. Seeming to notice his gaze, a professor who was fiddling with the computer raised his head, the excited flush on his face not yet dissipated, "President, we have tested it with software, and there is no problem with the hard drive capacity. If possible, we hope to take it back to the college's Laboratory to conduct further testing."

Sun Cheng nodded without objection. Even if Nanjing University of Technology dismantled these hard drives, there would be no fear of technology leakage, because the technical process used for the most critical Core of these hard drives designed by Atlas originates from the planet Cybertron. That is a process completely different from Earth's. Unless there is a detailed process provided by him, otherwise, just by groping, it would be considered a sign of strong technical ability if they could crack it within a few years.

Hearing this, Shen Peiyuan could not help but feel settled in his heart.

Confirming that there was no problem with the hard drives Sun Cheng brought meant that he might really have mastered some kind of new technology.

At that moment, his voice could not help but become a bit more urgent, and he took the initiative to say: "Nanjing University of Technology has always supported students in independent entrepreneurship, and will give strong support especially to students who truly possess technology. Since Student Sun Cheng has invented a new reading technology, this is a good thing for our country's hard drive industry, and we should give strong support. How about this, after your company starts large-scale production, I will personally help you contact the National Supercomputing Center to strive for orders. As for the Laboratory, you can prepare a complete set of materials and submit them to me later. I just don't know what the main subject of the Laboratory will be?"

Sun Cheng's eyes moved, "Intelligent Machinery!"

PS:

1. I calculated yesterday that I owe a total of 57 chapters, let's count it as 60 chapters. Starting today, I will increase the updates to three chapters daily, with four chapters at irregular intervals.

2. There are two more chapters tonight, I'm going to go get an IV drip in a moment.