Chapter 927
The First Day of the Frontier Research Institute
At six o'clock the morning after the unveiling ceremony, people were already walking along the glass corridor of the National Institute for Frontier Technology.
The five laboratories are arranged in a circle, with a central corridor that, in the morning light, resembles a silver ribbon, connecting the five buildings together.
From an aerial view, the layout of the entire research institute resembles an open palm, with five fingers extending outwards, yet all connected closely through the center of the palm.
This is a design scheme that Wang Donglai personally revised seventeen times. Each version was simulated on the Wa's quantum computing platform. From the density of people to the angle of lighting, from the equipment transportation channel to the emergency evacuation route, every detail was precisely calculated.
Walking along the corridor is Academician Zhao from the Energy Laboratory. He is 67 years old this year and is a top expert in the field of thorium-based molten salt reactors in China.
He spent twelve years at the Gansu base, where he led the design and construction of the "Xihe-2" experimental reactor. He is one of the few people in China who has actually worked on the core of a molten salt reactor.
On his last day before retirement, he received the above conversation.
"Academician Zhao, the National Frontier Research Institute needs you."
With just that one sentence, Academician Zhao unpacked his already packed luggage again.
His wife scolded him on the other end of the phone: "Didn't you agree to retire and come back to take care of your grandson?"
He chuckled and said, "His grandson has his mother to take care of him, but only I can take care of the molten salt pile."
He was holding a thermos with goji berries in it. His wife insisted that he do this, saying that at 67 years old, he shouldn't work as hard as young people.
He agreed verbally, but what he was thinking was something else entirely: Wang Donglai was only twenty-five years old, and one night of his life was equivalent to a week's worth of work for others.
If he doesn't work hard, how can he keep up?
The doors to the energy lab are open, and the lights are on.
Academician Zhao walked in and saw several young people gathered around a model of a thorium-based molten salt reactor. Some were holding tablets, some were writing and drawing on a whiteboard, and some were arguing in hushed tones.
He went closer and saw a line written on the whiteboard: "Material corrosion problem - Urgent!"
"what happened?"
He put down his thermos, not making a sound, but the entire laboratory fell silent instantly.
The young people turned around, saw it was him, and all of them breathed a sigh of relief.
A young man wearing glasses stepped forward; he was a doctoral student whom Academician Zhao had supervised in Gansu Province, and his surname was Liu.
"Teacher, last night I ran an accelerated life simulation of material corrosion on the platform. The results showed that the nickel-based alloy we selected earlier had a corrosion depth of 40 percent higher than expected under a high temperature of 750 degrees Celsius and a ten-year working condition."
He paused, his voice tightening slightly: "If this data is correct, then the design life of the commercial demonstration reactor will have to be cut from forty years to twenty-five years."
Academician Zhao frowned.
He walked up to the model, looked at the dense array of pipes and containers, and remained silent for a moment.
"Where are the simulation parameters? Show them to me."
Xiao Liu operated the tablet a few times, and lines of data popped up on the screen.
Academician Zhao put on his reading glasses and turned the pages one by one, his brows furrowing more deeply with each page he turned.
He flipped to the last page, took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"The parameters are fine, and the boundary conditions are fine too. The corrosion rate of our material formulation at 750 degrees Celsius has indeed been underestimated."
He paused, his voice becoming serious: "But this isn't all bad. It's better to discover problems early than late. We still have time to fix them now; if we wait until the pile is built up, it will be too late."
"But teacher, if we change the formula now, we'll need to do at least three hundred more crossover experiments, which will take a lot of time..."
Xiao Liu didn't finish speaking, but the meaning was clear.
"If there's not enough time, we'll work overtime. If there aren't enough people, we'll hire more. If there isn't enough equipment, we'll buy more."
Academician Zhao's voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear: "This is the National Institute for Advanced Technology, not a university laboratory. We're not doing work that 'just needs to publish papers,' but work that 'must succeed.'"
The young people exchanged glances, feeling both invigorated and understandably exhausted.
With Academician Zhao's words, they're about to get busy.
At 10 a.m., the quantum computing center in the information laboratory was already bustling with activity.
Inside the enormous vacuum chamber, the quantum chip of Xuanwu-2 emits a faint blue light at extremely low temperatures.
A row of engineers sat in front of the control panel, each with three screens in front of them displaying a dense stream of data.
The director of the information laboratory is Pan Hong, a leading figure in the field of quantum computing in China.
After the quantum computer prototype was developed with Wang Donglai's assistance, he knew that if quantum computers were to be truly implemented, they would have to rely on Wang Donglai.
Therefore, upon learning of the establishment of the National Frontier Research Institute, I immediately applied to join it.
Given his academic standing, he was naturally selected to join the team and take charge of the quantum computing aspect.
He was standing behind the control panel, hands on his hips, staring at the fluctuating numbers on the big screen, his brows furrowed in worry.
"The results of the forty-seventh decoherence test are in."
A young engineer stood up, his voice a little weak: "The coherence time has decreased by another three percent compared to yesterday."
Pan Hong remained silent.
The laboratory was so quiet that you could hear the hum of the vacuum pump.
Everyone knows what this means. Although the 20,000 qubits of Xuanwu-2 are a lot, if the coherence time is not high enough, the effective computations that can be performed will be greatly reduced.
"Why?"
Pan Hong finally spoke, his voice calm, but those who knew him well knew that such calm often meant the calm before the storm.
The young engineer swallowed hard: "Preliminary analysis suggests it's a problem with material purity. In the superconducting materials of quantum chips, trace impurities form localized states at extremely low temperatures, interfering with the coherence of the qubits."
"Material purity?"
Pan Hong's voice rose eight octaves: "Our materials are provided by the Galaxy Materials Laboratory, with a purity of 99.9999%, six nines! You're telling me there are impurities?"
The young engineer shrank back after being scolded, but didn't dare to argue back.
However, a female researcher in her forties stood up. She was Pan Hong's longtime partner, surnamed Li, and was in charge of the quantum chip fabrication process.
"Mr. Pan, it's not a problem with the materials."
Her voice was steady: "It's a problem with the fabrication process. Our electron beam lithography, at the nanoscale, doesn't control the linewidth uniformity well enough. The edge roughness is 0.3 nanometers higher than the design value, and this 0.3 nanometers is the source of the localized states."
Pan Hong's eyebrows furrowed even more.
0.3 nanometers, one three hundred millionth of a meter, one seventy thousandth of a human hair.
Ten years ago, no one would have cared about this level of defect, because quantum effects were not yet significant at that scale.
However, the 20,000 qubits of Xuanwu-2 are crammed together, with a spacing of only tens of nanometers between the qubits and an edge roughness of 0.3 nanometers, which is enough to cause a non-negligible loss of coherence.
"Can it be changed?"
he asks.
"can!"
Researcher Li nodded: "But we need to redesign the photolithography mask, which will take at least two weeks. And... the funding for the mask needs to be re-approved."
Pan Hong was silent for a moment, then picked up his phone and dialed a number.
When the call connected, he only said one sentence: "Mr. Wang, the manufacturing process for quantum chips needs to be upgraded..."
Without the slightest hesitation, the person on the other end of the phone said, "Submit a report, write an application, and I will handle it."
Pan Hong hung up the phone and said to Researcher Li, "Okay, no problem. Write a report and submit it. Two weeks should be enough for you."
Researcher Li nodded without hesitation: "Enough!"
The two of them showed no doubt or worry whatsoever, as if they took it for granted that the approval would be granted.
Because the chief scientist of the research institute is Wang Donglai.
At noon, the research institute's canteen was packed with people.
The canteen was designed by Wang Donglai himself. There are no private rooms, no special kitchens, and no "expert dining area".
Everyone was eating in the same hall, from academicians to newly hired assistant researchers, from administrative staff to cleaning ladies. They ate the same food and sat in the same chairs. Academician Zhao carried his tray and found a corner to sit down. Opposite him sat a young man, about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, wearing a wrinkled T-shirt with the words "Quantum bits do not decoherent" printed on it. He was obviously from the information laboratory.
"Academician Zhao?"
The young man recognized him and asked somewhat nervously, "You're eating here too?"
Academician Zhao smiled and said, "If we don't eat here, where will we eat? Director Wang said that the canteen doesn't offer any special treatment. Academicians and assistant researchers pay the same price, fifteen yuan all you can eat."
The young man smiled and relaxed a bit.
He took a bite of rice and suddenly asked, "Academician Zhao, do you really think thorium-based molten salt reactors can succeed?"
Academician Zhao put down his chopsticks and looked at him.
"What's your name?"
"Zhou Ming, from the Information Lab, has only been here for two months."
"Zhou Ming, I have a question for you. Do you really think quantum computers are feasible?"
Zhou Ming paused for a moment, then nodded: "Yes."
"why?"
"Because...because we already have 20,000 qubits. Although there are still issues with coherence time, the direction is correct. As long as we follow this direction, we will eventually reach the end."
Academician Zhao smiled: "The same goes for thorium-based molten salt reactors. We already have the material formula, the core design, and the complete process flow. The direction is right, and as long as we follow this direction, we will eventually reach the end."
Zhou Ming nodded thoughtfully and did not reply.
At 2 p.m., a special experiment was taking place in the brain-computer interface center of the Life Lab.
The subject of the experiment was a 23-year-old young man who was born blind and had never seen the light.
His parents took him to the best hospitals all over the country, but the answer was always the same: retinal hypoplasia and optic nerve atrophy, which current medical technology cannot cure.
A few months ago, his family saw a report online about Galaxy Technology's brain-computer interface.
His family, clinging to a sliver of hope, wrote an email to Galaxy Bio.
Galaxy Creatures received many emails, and if it weren't for Nuwa handling them, this particular email would probably have sunk to the bottom long ago and never been noticed.
At this moment, the young man sat on the experimental chair, wearing a silver-white helmet covered with densely packed electrodes.
Next to it is a huge signal processing device connected to a neural decoding chip independently developed by Galaxy Technology. This chip is only the size of a fingernail, but it integrates tens of thousands of microelectrodes, which can simultaneously stimulate different areas of the visual cortex to produce light sensations similar to "pixels".
Academician Li stood behind the control console, holding a tablet that displayed real-time brain activity monitoring data.
"Are you ready?"
The young man nodded, his voice trembling slightly: "Ready."
"Okay, let's begin."
She pressed the start button.
The young man closed his eyes and waited for a moment.
Then, he suddenly became excited.
"I think I saw...light..."
His voice trembled, and tears welled in his eyes: "It's white... lots of white lights... running everywhere..."
Academician Li did not speak, but simply looked at the data on the tablet.
The data told her that the stimulation was effective, the visual cortex was being activated, and the brain was trying to interpret these signals it had never experienced before.
Can you see the shape clearly?
She asked softly.
The young man was silent for a moment, trying hard to identify the points of light.
"No...it's not good enough yet. There are a lot of points of light...some are bright, some are dark...and some are moving..."
Academician Li recorded these feedbacks on the tablet and then increased the intensity of the stimulation.
"now what?"
"It's brighter now..."
Tears finally streamed down the young man's face: "I can really see things now, it's no longer all darkness before my eyes..."
The laboratory fell silent for a moment.
Some people sniffed softly, while others turned their heads to wipe their eyes.
Academician Li did not cry; she simply continued recording data on her tablet, but her hands were trembling slightly, not from nervousness or emotion, but from excitement.
She has been practicing medicine for over 30 years, performing countless surgeries and treating countless patients.
But this was the first time she had allowed a person who was born blind to "see" the light.
The significance of this technology is astonishing.
Although she was excited, she remained calm in her expression and tone: "Very good, today's experiment was a great success. Please stay optimistic and cooperate with us."
The young man covered his face, his shoulders trembling slightly, his face already covered in tears.
His parents stood by, already in tears.
……
That evening, the assembly and testing hall of the Lux-2000 in the aerospace laboratory was brightly lit.
Yang Anchao stood in the final assembly and testing hall, with the Hercules-2000 rocket, which was about to carry out a full-scale lunar landing mission, behind him.
The silver-gray arrow body has been painted, with the national flag and the four large characters "Galaxy Aerospace" printed on it, gleaming under the lights.
Standing next to him was Chief Engineer Zhou, with gray hair, thick glasses, and a test report in his hand.
"Mr. Yang, the seventh parallel test of the Lux-2000 will be at eight o'clock tomorrow morning."
Old Zhou's voice was a little hoarse; he hadn't been home for three days, eating and sleeping in the lab.
His wife called and yelled at him, "Are you out of your mind?"
He said, "The Rockets are risking their lives, but I'm not."
Yang Anchao took the report and turned the pages one by one.
Thrust data, combustion chamber pressure data, turbopump speed data, nozzle temperature data...
Each curve is so smooth as to be almost perfect.
What about coupled vibration modal analysis of parallel control systems?
Old Zhou pulled up the data on the tablet and handed it to him.
"When all three engines are working at the same time, the frequency of the coupled vibration is concentrated between 80 and 120 Hz, and the amplitude is within a controllable range. The control system can complete the thrust vector distribution and phase synchronization within five milliseconds, and there are no obvious signs of instability."
Five milliseconds?
Yang Anchao frowned slightly: "Can you reduce it to three milliseconds?"
Old Zhou paused for a moment, then nodded: "Yes, but the control algorithm needs to be recalibrated. The intelligent platform has already run two hundred simulations and found the optimal control parameters. If the test run is successful tomorrow, we can install the rocket next week."
Yang Anchao nodded and returned the report to Lao Zhou.
"I'll personally oversee the test drive tomorrow."
"Chief Engineer Yang, why don't you take a day off? You've been working too hard lately..."
"Old Zhou, time waits for no one. Our plan has been approved by the higher-ups. We will launch a verification rocket in September to complete the Earth-Moon transfer and lunar soft landing tests. If successful, we will launch the mission rocket at the end of the year and officially start the mission in March next year. It's all interconnected, and every step is very important. Time is also very tight. I have also made a solemn pledge that we can only succeed and cannot fail."
Yang Anchao's tone was resolute and determined, as if he had burned his bridges, and his expression revealed a serious and earnest resolve to overcome all difficulties and succeed. (End of Chapter)