Chapter 298: The Problem with Base No. 1

"It's done!"

Reeking of alcohol, Sun Cheng returned to the company when it was already past two in the afternoon.

Facing Wang Lu, the general manager who had rushed into his office with an eager expression, he waved his hand dismissively; the order from the Supercomputing Center had already been secured.

To be more precise, Sun Cheng had secured the hard drive order for the Asia Star series of supercomputers.

The two had known each other for some time, and Wang Lu knew that his young boss had a very poor tolerance for alcohol. Seeing the slight drunken flush on his face, he took the initiative to open the cabinet in Sun Cheng's office, took out a tea canister, and brewed a cup of strong tea to hand to him.

Sun Cheng did not actually understand the art of tea appreciation; even the tea kept in his office for receiving guests was merely a common brand from the supermarket that cost a few dozen yuan a canister.

However, as Wang Lu placed the cup of hot tea in front of him, the rich aroma of the tea wafted into his nose. Though he was unsure how much truth there was to green tea sobering one up, his spirits were indeed slightly lifted by the fragrance of the tea leaves in an instant.

"Thanks..."

He picked it up and took a large gulp, using it to rinse away the lingering taste of alcohol in his mouth.

Soon after setting the teacup down and pushing it to the side, Sun Cheng saw the look of hesitation on Wang Lu's face and realized how concerned he was about the order from the Supercomputing Center.

He had no choice but to explain in detail: "For now, it's just a verbal agreement. They will send someone over later to discuss the specifics, so there shouldn't be much of a problem. However, I only managed to secure an order from a project team under the Supercomputing Center, so there isn't really much profit in it!"

There was indeed not much profit; he had only obtained a letter of intent from the Asia Star project team led by Zheng Jun for a total of 24 hard drive units of varying specifications, and the total price he quoted to Zheng Jun was only a little over 400,000.

Equipment procurement for the Supercomputing Center was usually handled by a specialized department, but Zheng Jun's Asia Star project team was an exception.

Asia Star was a type of supercomputer aimed at the commercial market that the Nandu Supercomputing Center had invested significant capital and manpower into developing in recent years. Beyond developing various commercial applications more convenient for the market and enterprises, reducing maintenance costs and lowering the production costs of supercomputing were all difficult problems that Zheng Jun and his project team needed to consider, which was why they could obtain some authorization, though it still had to be reported to their superiors.

The expenditure for hard drive procurement was far less than that for GPUs and CPUs, and even less than motherboards, ranking only fourth in supercomputer hardware procurement.

Taking the year 2013 as an example, when the United States Department of Energy, Cray, and Intel jointly manufactured a supercomputer named Catalyst, it was equipped with 12 3.2TB solid-state drives, 36 128GB DRAM memory sticks, and 304 800GB solid-state drives; the total budget for over three hundred hard drive devices was only a little over 90,000 USD, which converted to national currency was only about 600,000.

Although Sun Cheng was not sure how the hard drives for Asia Star compared to those of Catalyst, he guessed that the procurement cost would not exceed it by much.

Because the D Printer could drive costs down to an extremely low level, and also because he saw that Zheng Jun, who came from Nanjing University of Technology, clearly did not have as close a relationship with the new president of Nanjing University of Technology, Shen Peiyuan, as he had previously guessed—at most, it was just a friendship of convenience.

To avoid further complications, Sun Cheng cut the price so decisively that it even left Zheng Jun and his team somewhat stunned.

Barring any accidents, they would soon come over to sign the contract with Cybertron Technology.

Wang Lu did not know the specific situation, but he smiled and comforted him, "Being able to secure their order, let alone earning less, is worth it even if we lose money. What Cybertron Technology needs most right now is to build a brand, and the Supercomputing Center is the best stepping stone!"

"Mm!"

Sun Cheng nodded; there is no reward without effort, a principle he understood.

After chatting for a few sentences, feeling that the drunken haze that had numbed his consciousness had dissipated quite a bit and that his head no longer felt the lightheadedness from before, Sun Cheng's thoughts gradually cleared.

He thought for a moment before saying to Wang Lu, "General Manager Wang, you've finished reading Lu Nan's proposal these past few days, right?"

"Mm, it's very insightful!" Seeing that he was prepared for a long talk, Wang Lu immediately stopped his steps toward his office and sat down on the sofa nearby. "The feasibility is good; I think it's worth a try!"

Sun Cheng nodded, but his brow furrowed.

The questioning he faced at the Supercomputing Center that morning made him realize that no matter how good your product is, if it lacks any reputation and has not been tested by the market, people might not necessarily buy it.

Sun Cheng admitted that if the product from Lu Nan's proposal were truly launched, even if Cybertron Technology couldn't make a huge profit, it could at least completely revitalize their cloud drive and give Cybertron Technology the opportunity to rise from a startup to the ranks of domestic cloud drive giants.

However, this required time!

Lu Nan might be a genius with creativity, but the pressure of having him—someone who hadn't even left campus yet—independently develop a voice software was not small. Sun Cheng was very worried that the other party would find it difficult to finish within the timeline he had previously given.

After pondering for a moment, he exhaled and said slowly, "I didn't consider things thoroughly before. I had intended to wait until the company had finished the product designed by Lu Nan before pushing it to the market, but I didn't carefully consider the time required for development, and I might not be able to wait that long. General Manager Wang, continue to push forward with the hard drive promotion you paused according to the original plan. Our cloud drive must make a name for itself as soon as possible..."

Hearing this, Wang Lu immediately looked at him. Just as he was about to ask for details, he saw Sun Cheng's expression was unusually serious, and the words he had on the tip of his tongue were immediately swallowed back.

"Perhaps the investors put some pressure on him..."

Although Wang Lu did not know Sun Cheng's true thoughts, he had been in the industry for many years, and his mind turned to the problems startups encounter in the market.

"I understand. I'll go give instructions regarding the promotion, but can the product line keep up?"

"No problem. I'll go over in a moment to give instructions; there won't be any problems there!"

The D Printer equipment inside Base No. 1 at Huwangling came from the hands of the Decepticon Worker.

If production capacity were to truly explode, it would definitely make the semiconductor manufacturers of this world marvel.

However, it was not without its problems.

Thinking of this, the knot between Sun Cheng's brows tightened a little more.

If Cybertron Technology's hard drives were truly to be bundled with the cloud drive and promoted, Base No. 1 would likely need to purchase a large amount of raw materials every day, and the transportation of finished products would no longer be something that could be solved by just his one pickup truck.

Once outsiders were allowed in and out of that place, the risk of Base No. 1 being exposed would increase significantly.

"Can't drag this out any longer..."

He picked up the teacup and drank the now-cold tea in one gulp.

The many problems at Base No. 1 were due to be solved.