Chapter 233 - 227 New Plan_1

In the first hour of the G series notebook launch, all 1500 units of this batch were snapped up within 3 minutes.

Half of the purchasing users are fellow consumer electronics businesses, a smaller half are media professionals and laboratories, and the rest are genuine users.

Those who can buy the G1X right now can really only be said to support domestic products, because the accompanying environment is too rudimentary, and it supports very few functions.

Apart from word processing, office work, and audio-visual entertainment, although XOS3.2 does have a browser, it also has significant limitations, such as its lack of Flash plug-in support...

Such a notebook, priced at 8599, is indeed too expensive. At the same time, one could buy a Lenovo netbook for just three to four thousand.

But as expensive as it is, everyone knows that domestic products have great potential. What’s more, the support for those cutting-edge AI functions alone makes the expenditure seem worthwhile.

Moreover, the emergence of the G1X powerfully demonstrated the feasibility of ternary technology, at least no worse than binary!

Of course, all of this is for the general public to see. High-end laboratories never stopped researching ternary chips.

Beijing Science and Technology University, Space Quantum Laboratory.

In front of Peng Jianfu was a mass of tangled wires connected to a motherboard that had undergone modifications. Most of the original components had been removed or replaced, connected via jumper wires to the testing equipment.

This was an XC4 car machine motherboard that had been lying here for two months.

They first tried to crack the XW151 smart system, but due to the cross-nary and deliberate encryption, the cracking process was extremely difficult, and they eventually gave up entirely.

Afterwards, they changed direction and started from scratch, first tackling the physical architecture of the X32115, and then attempted to compile the underlying operating environment on their own, to probe the potential of ternary chips.

After more than a month of effort, the laboratory finally managed to establish a rudimentary foundational environment, or operating system, to perform some testing.

Peng Jianfu insisted on developing the X32115 in the laboratory, as he believed that ternary chips might possess the potential for quantum computing, fundamentally surpassing traditional computers in principle.

And just two hours ago, the laboratory had managed to utilize 9 quantum bits and successfully conducted a quantum computation.

Is the quantum computer coming...

...

"G1X? Not as good-looking as our X16."

Xie Liaofu looked at the G1X prototype sent over by The Great Wall with disdain, then still picked up the X16 notebook newly issued internally by New Yuan this year.

The X16 was indeed impressive, loaded with the thrice slightly improved X320 series chip, 14nm silicon carbide, and the overall workmanship was CNC machined ultra-light aerospace alloy material, slim and portable.

It’s just that the software it carried was still scarce, not much different from G1X. However, the Microelectronics Department was working hard on industrial software, currently organizing the rich database accumulated by New Yuan. In another month, they would have a preliminary version of the design and analysis software available.

And the successor to Stellar One, the Stellar No. 2 supercomputer, is also under development.

Stellar No. 2 will be much more powerful, utilizing a brand new upgraded X32045 chip. Although it’s still 14nm, the architecture was specifically optimized: 20,000 CPUs forming the new supercomputer.

Besides the exponential increase in computational capacity, Stellar No. 2 will also support quantum computing on a small scale for the first time. It will be specially optimized for certain design aspects, where computational speed in specific scenarios could be thousands of times faster than traditional computers, which is quite astonishing.

Of course, the power consumption will also be 10 times higher, necessitating yet another call to the power supply bureau to increase the lines.

Over half a month has passed, and Xie Liaofu has already completed the production link modification of two bases. Now, each workshop operates independently, only receiving computer commands to complete processing in the set time, further strengthening the independence between departments.

Now Xie Liaofu, aside from overseeing the entire base’s operations, is also directly involved in several projects.

Firstly, it’s the "Star Dwelling" deep space exploration plan that Xiao Okada is responsible for.

After more than two months of research, Xiao Okada had a preliminary plan in mind.

"Kelo... Mr. Xie, I believe that for deep space exploration, the first thing we need to pay attention to is cost control; by keeping costs down, we can also improve efficiency.

I plan to design a type of generic satellite platform, with an output power of around 15 to 30KW, capable of operating for at least 20 years."

Xiao Okada opened his computer and displayed the "Star Dwelling" generic satellite platform to Xie Liaofu.

Mr. Xie saw that it was a 6 to 10-ton heavy-duty satellite, with the most powerful part being the signal transmitter due to its primary use in deep space exploration, while the payloads are various detection function components targeting the planets.

Besides, another highlight is the ability to choose between a nuclear reactor and New Yuan’s current 50N-class powerful Hall Thruster, capable of maintaining maneuverability over the years, a function not present in past deep space probes.

Although its weight is similar to the "Mountain" series, "Star Dwelling" is more precise and intricate, so there’s a problem: it cannot be launched by a rocket.

The maximum acceleration of a rocket can reach about 5G, but it’s better to use the H2M series spaceplane.

Compared to rockets, the H2M, being massive, if launched by New Yuan-2A, the rocket’s thrust-to-weight ratio would be small during launch, and the engine nozzle would need constant deviation for center of gravity adjustment, causing yaw. The acceleration process is longer hence the overload is smaller, just about 3G.

As for New Yuan No. 3 launches, they use H2 as the third stage towards the Moon, which isn’t normally necessary.

But the issue arises, even if you were to reach the orbit of other planets, the most you’d need is a rocket with a LEO capacity of up to 20 tons, which would suffice, and the cost of a single launch would be under 100 million.

However, an H2 launch requires using New Yuan-2A, and the cost of launch would be 5 billion, too expensive. Launching seven times for seven planets would approach 40 billion, far exceeding the budget.

But increasing the payload capacity of the probe would bring in a lot of dead weight, and some super-precise detection instruments may also have issues and cannot be mounted, so Mr. Xie needs to solve this problem first.

Although he had previously led missions to Venus and Mars, sending landers and flyby probes, times have changed. Back then, there weren’t these powerful and precise instruments available today.

Controlling the budget... has always been a Union specialty.

Mr. Xie carefully reviewed the technical materials and design manuals Xiao Okada had organized over the past period, first nodding in affirmation:

"Okada, your design work is very good. Fitting so many functions into a minimum weight of 6 tons is really excellent, very good indeed. There’s no need to add extra weight.

As for the carrier, why limit it to what we currently have?"

Xiao Okada: "You mean..."

Mr. Xie: "Do you know? After the end of the Cold War, many of the Union’s advanced weapons were declassified, and this is how the world evaluated us: Union scientists can always turn a pile of trash into an excellent machine.

And now, with so much technology at the base, you all fail to leverage it. I see that we could send a 20-ton spacecraft into orbit for less than 35 million. If it were an unmanned spacecraft, then squeezing in a 10-ton payload is certainly feasible."