Reinventing the Millennium.

Chapter 1451 Hype (4k)

The photoresist in the ice core is almost exhausted, which was expected since November last year.

Over the past nearly half a year, various parties have made great efforts and mediation on this matter and have made some progress, but they can only guarantee the needs of Bingxin's mature technology and some advanced technologies to a limited extent, and the most advanced 16nm has never been purchased.

First, Japanese manufacturers cannot sell. In the mainland, there is only one wafer manufacturer, Bingxin, which has 16nm technology, and it is also clearly restricted by BIS. Even if it is disguised, it cannot be sold.

Second, Japanese manufacturers did not want to sell. Bingxin tried to purchase through foreign outlets, but there were only a few companies in the world with 16nm technology. JSR Corporation and Tokyo Ohka did not want to take risks at this juncture.

Due to various circumstances, the expected most advanced ice core production line was shut down.

It's hard to describe my mood. Even though Bingxin had made the worst-case scenario plan from the very beginning, and even though it had repeatedly verified the situation and given employees a heads-up over the past six months, when it really came, many people still stayed until the last moment.

Bing Xin's work schedule has been very busy during this period, and she didn't even have a holiday during the Chinese New Year. Now that it's holiday time for many people, she doesn't feel happy at all, but rather heavy.

Fab1-6 is Bingxin's most advanced and also the world's most advanced wafer manufacturing plant. It was completed in 2013, and successfully launched the first-generation 2014nm equipped with FinFET in 16. It completed the upgrade and transformation the following year and continued to launch the second-generation 16nm process.

Bingxin has achieved fantastic success in the past two years, surpassing Taiwan Semiconductor and Intel, and making the world aware of this wafer manufacturer from mainland China.

From the project launch at the end of 2003, to the start of construction in 2004, to winning the world's first honor, it has not been easy for the ice core to come this far. When this hard-earned success was destroyed, the participants were particularly upset.

This is true for all ice core employees.

Because of this, Liang Mengsong, who led a team to secretly develop 10nm technology at SMIC, made a special trip back to Luzhou to greet this moment together with the employees of Fab1-6 who were deeply shocked.

The production line was at a standstill, and subsequent arrangements were made for calibration, R&D testing, optimization testing and other things that could still be done, but these were just scraps.

Liang Mengsong has not appeared in Luzhou for some time. Today, when he was standing in the factory, he noticed that everyone was looking at him gradually, and he also saw that some people had tears in their eyes.

He decided to say something anyway.

What can I say?

Liang Mengsong was silent for a while, looked at his colleagues who were also silent, and said slowly: "It's very bad now."

The shutdown of the production line is not just bad, it is a serious incident, and Bingxin is also facing severe external measures.

"But it won't be any worse than when we started."

Today, Bingxin is already on the market, with many manufacturing processes, advanced R&D and an excellent team, many stable customers, and support from the entire mainland industry.

In 2003, no one believed in the unconventional founding team. In 2005, Bingxin even had to complete the 130nm risk trial production with the help of SMIC.

The ice cores from that time have survived to the present day, let alone the ice cores of today. How can they not face the future?
Bingxin Co-CEO's words were brief and to the point, but everyone in the factory could understand his meaning.

Liang Mengsong said the third sentence: "What's more, I am here now."

He didn't speak passionately, nor was he good at that; he just spoke in a plain and straightforward manner.

However, the eyes of the people present seemed to light up again.

Liang Mengsong was about to end his speech, but after thinking about it, he decided to add a fourth sentence: "... and Mr. Fang."

Mr. Fang is also very capable.

The meaning was expressed well, but the intermittent way suddenly made the atmosphere relaxed. Well, as the most professional non-professional semiconductor person, Mr. Fang is certainly amazing!
Liang Mengsong took a few steps and reached out to high-five the employee closest to him: "Take a good rest. The work ahead will also be very hard."

As he did this, high-fiving seemed to become a ritual, and the employees walked up to Liang Mengsong one by one to complete the final handover before going on vacation.

When the ceremony was over, the assistant next to him couldn't help but ask, "Dr. Liang, when can the production line be restarted?"

Liang Mengsong shook his head and did not answer the question. He just said, "Let's go back to Shencheng."

He didn't know when this place could be restarted, but it was over and he needed to go back to the work at hand.

……

The shutdown of Bingxin's 16nm production line is a very serious signal, but because Yike controls the accumulated mobile phone product shipments during this period, this will not be noticed by the market at the first time.

However, this is only a matter of time. In addition to the physical properties of photoresist, many media outlets are watching closely, and websites like "KILL YIKE" are constantly exposing the bad news that the Yike system is facing.

This is already within expectations, it has already hit rock bottom.

What the market is more interested in now is what Yi Ke can do. If there is no response to this issue, Yi Ke’s stock price will obviously continue to fall, and even the negative decline during the volatility will not be maintained.

The YiKe system is still very powerful, but whether it is Yiguo, YiXin or Douyin, they are all generally included in one system and function, and each is still an independent company.

Whether it is Yike’s stock price or its business, they all need to look at their own performance, and the increase in the system can only serve as icing on the cake.

So in June, when the US media generally announced that YiKe had collapsed, it seemed as if it played a card of cutting-edge concepts, trying to make a difference in the stock price.

Yike Company is doing deep learning and has gathered a group of people to work on artificial intelligence. This is something the outside world has known for a long time. Fang Zhuo also posted the performance of robots in the office on Douyin this year.

However, on June 17, the China Securities Journal suddenly revealed a piece of news that Yike has made considerable progress in the field of artificial intelligence. It also revealed that it registered an account called "Taibai" on the Yichen Go website last month and played Go games with Go masters from all over the world, winning consecutive games.

These 17 games include Chinese world champions Gu Li and Ke Jie, Korean world champions Park Ting-hwan and Kang Dong-yoon, and Japan's number one player Yuta Iyama, which can be said to be full of gold content.

Artificial intelligence has been trying to defeat humans in chess since its inception, such as the "Deep Blue" launched by IBM in 97, which was the first time that AI defeated the world chess champion in an official competition.

However, due to its complexity, Go has always been considered a field that is difficult for AI to crack.

Therefore, when the China Securities Journal revealed the "Taibai" vest that caused a small stir in the Go circle in May, the news immediately penetrated the niche circle and quickly spread to the technology and business circles.

This time, Yi Ke generously confirmed the authenticity of the news, admitting that it was indeed true. The cause of the incident was that Mr. Fang was curious about the extent of his own research.

Coincidentally, Google launched an AI called "Alpha" in the first half of the year, and played against and defeated European Go champion Fan Hui and world Go champion Lee Sedol, so the use of vest testing came into being.

"How far has artificial intelligence reached?" the reporter asked Andrew Ng, the project leader of Yi Ke who responded this time.

"Artificial intelligence still has a long way to go," Ng said after a brief pause, "but in the field of Go, it should be better than humans."

Such a sentence caused an explosive effect in the hot spot.

Yi Ke is very strong and its R&D is amazing, but online games are not formal and the players’ mentality is different. Isn’t it too disrespectful of human wisdom and the art of Go to make such a conclusion based solely on the test results?
Many professional chess players have spoken out, expressing their dissatisfaction with Andrew Ng's remarks.

Chess master Nie Weiping even went to the media to formally comment on the chess player "Taibai" from Yike Company: "I watched Taibai play 17 games. It is indeed very powerful, but it is too exaggerated to say that it surpasses humans. There are many low-level mistakes in these 17 games, and Taibai also had moments of narrow victory."

"If you really want to say that Taibai can surpass humans, then there must be a formal competition. Otherwise, it would be just empty talk!"

Nie Weiping challenged Taibai to a duel with him.

Yike Company happily accepted the invitation and, by the way, explained the origin of "Taibai". The company named the AI ​​project "Venus" in English and "Taibai" in Chinese.

Venus is the planet Venus, which is opposite to the Mars in mobile phones. There is also a character like Venus in Western mythology. In ancient China, Venus was described as "Taibai, the essence of gold in the west, the son of Baidi, the supreme duke, and the image of the great general", hence the name.

Yi Ke not only accepted the invitation, but also expanded the scope, willing to have an offline formal competition with five chess players including Nie Weiping, and set up a winning prize of 5 million US dollars.

For a time, not only did public opinion pay close attention to the game, but chess players from South Korea and Japan, who had originally hesitated, also quickly signed up and asked to fight for the honor of mankind.

Soon, the date was set on June 6, when Yi Ke Taibai would play against the five top chess players from China, Japan and South Korea.

However, before this day arrived, there was a small tidbit between the human camp and the AI ​​camp. The former demanded a three-game match, meaning each person had to win two out of three games, while the latter was only willing to play 1V5.

That is, the five chess players will each have a room, and Taibai will play against them at the same time. As long as humans win three of the games, the prize money will be equally divided among humans.

It was revealed that Nie Weiping specifically asked someone for Fang Zhuo's phone number for this matter and called him directly to express his dissatisfaction, believing that such an action was a humiliation.

They are all top chess players, but Taibai’s “multi-faceted attack” is really arrogant!
Of course, it’s not Taibai who is arrogant, it’s Yi Ke who is too arrogant!
"Teacher Nie, the third match is too time-consuming. It will take at least three days for one person. Yike has a lot of tasks now and everyone is in a hurry. I asked the company and they said that it would not have much impact on Taibai." Fang Zhuo responded politely, "Everyone can join together. You're welcome. We are not a Go company. We are just verifying the technology."

In addition, he also modified the conditions: "Teacher Nie, in this way, as long as one person can win a game, it will prove that Taibai has not surpassed human players. Then the company will issue a bonus, and I will personally give an additional 500 million US dollars to the winning player, and donate another 500 million US dollars to the domestic Go industry. How about it?"

Nie Weiping finally agreed because Mr. Fang was rich.

However, with the establishment of this final condition, the strong confidence demonstrated by Yi Ke has made the human Go camp feel like they are facing a formidable enemy. At the same time, CCTV, the Internet, TikTok and even foreign media will broadcast live to determine the final winner or loser.

Before June 6, Yi Ke’s stock price had already risen because of this out-of-circle movement, which made the short sellers criticize Yi Ke’s actions.

Russell of RC Hedge Fund has become the vanguard of shorting Yike’s stock. He criticized Yike bluntly: “This is just Mr. Fang hyping up the concept! Even if Yike wins, what will happen? Can it launch any products by playing Go? This will not improve Yike’s worsening revenue!”

What Russell said was actually very true, but Yike’s stock price was rising... Although it was not a lot, it did stop the downward trend and had a small rebound.

What can artificial intelligence do?
Before the Go Game Day, Elder, Yike's vice president of technology, also appeared to talk about the direction in this area, and believed that it would make great strides in the future in the fields of search, medical care, education, etc.

As for what this game can prove...

Elder's answer was: "At least it proves that we are on a good track. In fact, compared with playing against humans, we are more interested in Taibai and Google's AlphaGo. Which one is stronger? This is something we can really try."

Initially, I was inspired by what I saw in this regard from Google. Although the boss did intend to hype it up, the strength of the technology also interested Yike internally.

Google later responded, saying it was willing to compete with humans after Taibai defeated them.

The subtext is, if you haven't won, then there's no point in talking.

The media was very lively, the Go camp was united in hatred of the enemy, and the financial market responded. Against this background, on June 6, Yi Ke's "Taibai" played against five human Go players, Nie Weiping, Ke Jie, Lee Sedol, Shin Jin-seo, and Iyama Yuta, in an all-channel live broadcast.

1V5, multi-faceted fighting, human honor, and a super prize of 1500 million US dollars.

Nie Weiping was defeated first, then Iyama Yuta lost in the middle game, and Lee Sedol resigned. When Shin Jin-seo and Ke Jie fell into long thinking during the live broadcast, although many viewers did not understand Go, they seemed to feel the grandeur of the game.

The two top chess players did not make any move for a long time, but the live camera switched to capture many professional players with thoughtful, frustrated or painful expressions, as well as Fang Zhuo, the head of YiKe, who arrived at the scene at some point.

Fang Zhuo noticed the camera and gave a polite smile.

Five minutes later, Shin Jin-seo stared at the chessboard blankly and resigned himself to defeat.

Ten minutes later, Ke Jie had tears in his eyes, announcing that the human camp had completely lost the last game.

The Go game, which is full of human wisdom, ended with a seemingly calm game process amid heated public discussion. The final result proved that Yi Ke had every reason to take the $1500 million...

The Go camp was in turmoil, and public opinion was once again enthusiastically discussing the progress of AI. Stimulated by this enthusiasm, Yike’s stock price rose again.

Not only that, Yike also launched a game it acquired the next day, named "Human: Fall Flat" to suit the occasion.

The Wall Street Journal reported the events with great interest, publishing Fang Zhuo's devilish smile, the turmoil in the Go camp, the games that fit the occasion, and Yi Ke's stock price rebound.

Its final evaluation was: "Mr. Fang rarely showed his ability to hype up concepts. He is obviously very good at it, but he did not use it often in the past. However, if even Mr. Fang starts to hype up the concept, the real situation of Yike may be even worse."

Such evaluation did not dampen the stock price rebound. The popularity of AI was hyped up, and Yike was obviously highly praised. Its investment and team building in this field were also dug out, proving that it was not a temporary idea.

Fang Zhuo's main purpose for this matter is to give an impact on the investment. He wants to see what the company's R&D level is like. Of course, he also wants to hype up the stock price to prevent the short sellers from leaving the market too early.

(End of this chapter)