Tech Giants: Starting from Bankrupt Companies

89: Chapter 89 A Wildfire Spreads: The Call of ScienceLate Night Decision

August 15th, late at night, top-floor office of Xinghuo Headquarters.

Outside the window, the lights of Shenzhen had mostly thinned out, leaving only the stubborn glow from the data center downstairs and a few individual laboratories, like beacons on a dark sea refusing to be extinguished. Only a single desk lamp was lit in the office, its dim yellow halo casting Su Chen’s silhouette onto the massive floor-to-ceiling window, overlapping with the city’s silhouette outside.

On his laptop screen before him were not financial reports or technical drawings, but a virtual interface shimmering with a faint blue luster that only he could see—the [Hyper-Dimensional Tech System].

On the interface, an option named ”Summon Top Experts for the Entire Chip Industry Chain” was flashing rapidly, with the exchange price marked below in cold numbers: 3 billion system rebate funds.

Su Chen’s gaze fell on the balance column in the upper right corner: 14.287 billion. This was the cumulative funding returned by the system proportionally based on product market profits since the launch of Spark’s first drone. It was a ”strategic reserve fund” independent of the company’s financial statements and entirely at the disposal of his personal will.

His finger hovered over the trackpad for a moment. 3 billion was not a small sum. This money could be invested into the Xingchen Heavy Industry R&D team, could subsidize the Red Flag project to weather its difficulties, or could even serve as a super bonus for the R&D teams.

But Su Chen’s eyes did not waver in the slightest.

He knew better than anyone that in the face of America’s comprehensive embargo aimed at completely ”uprooting” them, conventional recruitment, school-enterprise cooperation, or even breakthroughs under a national system might fall into a long, painful, and uncertain exploration due to the lack of basic theory and gaps in core process know-how. Spark could not afford to wait, and the window of opportunity for China’s semiconductor industry could afford to wait even less.

”Exchange,” Su Chen whispered two words, and his fingertip dropped.

[Confirm consumption of 3 billion system rebate funds to exchange for ’Summon Top Experts for the Entire Chip Industry Chain (Group of Five)’?]

”Confirm.”

The virtual interface instantly rippled like water, the faint blue light intensifying as countless fine, neural-network-like streams of light rapidly traversed and wove across the screen. A moment later, the light receded, and five three-dimensional electronic files emitting a faint white glow floated above the interface, like five seeds of civilization waiting to be opened.

[Exchange successful.] The system’s characteristic, emotionless electronic voice rang in Su Chen’s mind.

[The five top scientists have accepted the ’Summoning Contract.’ The system has implanted an underlying conscious logic of ’absolute loyalty to host Su Chen’ and constructed complete, rationalized background stories: all are disillusioned with Western technological hegemony, academic politicization, or commercial short-sightedness, and are determined to devote themselves to the cause of China’s technological self-reliance.]

[They will arrive in Shenzhen successively in their own reasonable ways within the next 72 hours. To ensure safety and reduce attention, their arrival times and methods will be staggered.]

Su Chen took a deep breath and clicked on the first file.

Five Mobile Technical Monuments

File One: Li Weimin (Lee Weimin), 72 years old, chinese american.

The profile picture was of an elderly man with silver hair, a lean face, and a gaze as sharp as an eagle’s.

Identity Labels: Academician of the US National Academy of Sciences, IEEE Life Fellow, Turing Award winner (2008).

Core Achievements: The true godfather of the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) field. Not only was he the founder of the early core algorithms (static timing analysis, logic synthesis) at Synopsys, but the ”Lee’s Algorithm” he proposed remains one of the underlying pillars of global EDA tools today. His academic lineage spans top universities and chip companies worldwide; he is truly the ”Confucius of the EDA world.”