Chapter 501: Building a Supercomputer

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou was stunned when he heard Principal Xu’s concern, so he smiled and spoke.

“Actually it’s not a big deal, maybe Old Zhou thinks that my development is going too smoothly and is worried about me surpassing him. He probably wrote that article hoping I would slow down and wait for him to catch up.”

Principal Xu heard Lu Zhou’s words and shook his head.

“Your mentality is so strong, still able to make jokes with me.”

“It’s not that big of a deal, making a joke isn’t a big deal,” Lu Zhou carelessly smiled and said. “From Mr. Zhou’s point of view, he owns the controllable nuclear fusion field. Obviously, he wants to control everyone in this field. To put it bluntly, this isn’t a fight between the Stellarator and Tokamak. Regardless of what I am researching, as long as he isn’t in control of the STAR Stellarator project and my research is affecting his authority in the field, he will definitely have some negative opinions about me.”

Principal Xu smiled and said, “… You’re seeing the whole situation thoroughly. So you really don’t care at all?”

“I really don’t care what he says.” Lu Zhou smiled lightly and said, “It might have impacted someone else, but it isn’t impacting me.”

“… Okay then, if he’s intimidating you with his authority and does something out of line, you can tell me. I can’t help you much with your research, but I can still help you write a couple of letters,” Principal Xu said. He unscrewed his vacuum flask lid and took a sip of hot tea. He then paused for a while and said, “It’s not just me, your supervisor Old Lu and the entire Jin Ling University is on your side.”

Lu Zhou: “If it really comes to that, I will tell you.”

“I’m relieved to hear you say this.” Principal Xu nodded and said, “What I’m most worried about isn’t your research going wrong, it’s you not speaking up about some issue.”

Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly and said, “You must be kidding, am I the type of person that will mistreat myself?”

“Okay, enough of this. I know you’re not here to talk about this thing.” Principal Xu smiled and asked, “Tell me, what trouble have you encountered?”

Lu Zhou put on a more serious expression and spoke.

“The reason I came to visit you today was mainly to talk about the program problems.”

“Program problems? I’m decent at that.” Principal Xu put down the vacuum flask and said with interest, “Let’s hear it. Even if I can’t solve it, I can recommend a couple of information technology academicians that can.”

Lu Zhou: “It’s about the control scheme for the stellarator.”

“Stellarator’s control scheme?” Principal Xu frowned after hearing Lu Zhou’s question, and he asked, “This… I really don’t know a lot about it. Can you elaborate?”

Lu Zhou nodded and explained the specific problem from an academic point of view.

In short, whether it was the tokamak or stellarator, the high destiny plasma in the fusion chambers was highly unstable, and turbulence could occur at any time.

The magnetic field that constrained the plasma was like an invisible hand, while the computer that controlled the outer field coil was like the brain. Having just the brain alone wasn’t enough, the plasma changes could occur in an instant. It was impossible for people to control the computer, this could only be done by a program.

The Max Planck Institute was quite well-versed in this regard. According to the control scheme established by referencing Lu Zhou’s plasma turbulence model, the operation time of Wendelstein 7-X successfully increased to 30 minutes, thus shocking the entire world.

Now that Lu Zhou’s plasma turbulence model was proven correct by the Wendelstein 7-X, all Lu Zhou had to do was to prepare a reliable control scheme for his STAR machine.

The Institute for Advanced Study didn’t have anyone proficient in information technology. With his scrappy programming knowledge, he could write a couple of programs, but he was way out of his league when it came to large-scale scientific research project software.

Therefore, Lu Zhou focused his attention on Jin Ling University.

Jin Ling University’s computer science department was second only to the physics department. It was ranked as one of the highest in China. Plus Principal Xu himself was an academician of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, so asking him for help was the perfect match.

After hearing Lu Zhou’s explanation, Principal Xu thought for a moment and said, “The problems you talked about, it’s not just software problems, right?”

Lu Zhou was a little embarrassed as he said, “Yeah, that is the case.”

This was quite shameful. As of now, not only was the STAR machine brain lacking in software, but it also had hardware problems that had to be solved.

Like building a supercomputer, this was all something that would require professionals to complete.

Professor Xu sighed and said, “Okay then, I’ll gather the professors from the computer science department and form a small team. We’ll help you solve both the hardware and software problem as well as the control scheme… Can I ask how much is your budget?”

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and said, “Around a billion yuan.”

Principal Xu: “…”

Lu Zhou hesitated for a bit and asked, “Is it not enough?”

It’s not like I’m building a Tianhe-2 supercomputer, one billion is surely enough?

Principal Xu gently coughed and said, “… Nothing, it’s enough. I was just a bit surprised.”

What he really wanted to say was how rich the controllable nuclear fusion industry was, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to say this out loud.

They had hundreds of millions in research funding, and any research project they outsourced would be able to fund countless professors.

No wonder Zhou Chengfu was jealous.

“The computer science department here can solve the control scheme and supercomputer problem. Is there anything else?”

Lu Zhou was about to say that there wasn’t anything else, but he suddenly remembered Yang Xu talking about a staff sports event thing, so he spoke.

“Oh yeah, one more thing.”

Principal Xu: “What thing?”

“It’s not anything important. It’s just that our institute plans on hosting a sports event, but our gymnasiums are still under construction.” Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly as he said, “If it’s not too much of a hassle, I’d like to borrow a sports venue or something.”

When Principal Xu heard this request, he replied with a smile, “That’s it? Piece of cake, I’ll call the academic affairs office. Oh yeah, Dean Liu was also talking to me about hosting a faculty sports event. How about we find a time to host it together?”

Lu Zhou smiled and said, “Sure, I don’t mind.”

The Jinling Institute for Advanced Study and Jin Ling University 1 were part of a family. Not only did they collaborate on research projects, but many researchers at the Institute for Advanced Study also had faculty positions at Jin Ling University. Having a sports event would boost everyone’s morale.

Also, sports events would be boring if there were not a lot of people; it would be much more fun with more people.

Since Lu Zhou agreed, Principal Xu smiled and patted his thigh. He quickly said, “Okay then, it’s ad one deal. We’ll provide the venue, and you guys will take care of the prizes.”

Lu Zhou: “…”

Why does it feel like…

There’s some kind of strange agreement mixed into this.

Whatever, it’s not like we’re lacking money anyway.

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