125: Chapter 126 A Defective Product Discarded as Scrap!

Upon hearing Secretary Shen Hai admit in person that the batch of physical chips, which had only existed in intelligence speculations, had truly been manufactured and was already running in the server room.

Secretary Shen Hai's fingers, which were resting on the edge of the table, suddenly stiffened.

Even though he had mentally prepared himself countless times before coming, when he heard this young man in his early twenties nonchalantly state that he had torn through the semiconductor patent blockade line that the West had spent decades establishing, the corner of Secretary Shen Hai's eye still twitched violently and uncontrollably.

The raging waves in his heart almost broke through the composure he had cultivated from years of holding high office. However, tempered by decades of top-tier political and business experience, Secretary Shen Hai forcefully swallowed the exclamation in his throat, perfectly suppressing this lapse in composure.

He looked at Shen Du expressionlessly, noncommittal about the confession of "serious infringement of international intellectual property rights."

At this particular juncture in time, facing the increasingly harsh technological barriers of the West, so-called international rules were worthless in the face of absolute core technology capable of breaking the blockade.

Secretary Shen Hai's silence and lack of any accusation conveyed the official, secretive, yet firm protective stance: As long as your technology can take root domestically, even if you smash the foreign patent wall to pieces, the country simply won't care!

Taking a gentle breath, and after forcefully suppressing the raging waves still churning in his heart, Secretary Shen Hai regained his cold, sharp rhythm as a superior.

"Quite honest, and you are very clear about what you are actually doing." Secretary Shen Hai nodded slightly. He remained noncommittal about Shen Du's unauthorized "magic modification" of the Western architecture and directly threw out the core, ultimate demand of today's closed-door meeting.

"Then I will ask one last question. If the country gives you enough time, funding, and even the top-tier policy endorsement." Secretary Shen Hai stared fixedly into Shen Du's eyes, his gaze becoming incredibly intense: "Can you completely finish the underlying research and development of this set of chip manufacturing equipment? Within three to five years, complete mass production and put it directly into use in the domestic physical industrial environment?"

Facing this official bigwig's hopeful, or perhaps even solemn, probe, Shen Du calmly shook his head. "Three to five years? Too long."

Shen Du didn't hide anything at all, his tone carrying a maddeningly nonchalant air as he directly confessed: "Let me give you the bottom line. Actually, the entire set of physical machines has already been assembled. And it has already entered the high-pressure, full-load testing phase. It's just that..."

Shen Du frowned slightly, seemingly extremely dissatisfied with the current data, and sighed: "The current yield rate is really not very ideal; it's only seventy-five percent."

As soon as the words "only seventy-five percent" were spoken, the air in the conference room seemed to be completely sucked dry in an instant. "Wait!" Before Shen Du could finish the second half of his sentence, Secretary Shen Hai, who had just been as steady as a mountain, suddenly raised his hand and rudely interrupted him, as if he were a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

Out of disbelief and shock, this leader of Shanghai, who usually remained calm even if Mount Tai collapsed before him, had a voice that even carried a hint of uncontrollable cracking and trembling: "What did you just say... the yield rate is?!"

Seeing Secretary Shen Hai's near-loss of composure, Shen Du thought he hadn't expressed himself clearly using professional terminology, causing this layman leader to misunderstand something. Therefore, he earnestly added one final, "Versailles" style finishing blow: "You didn't hear wrong. With our current underlying process of magically modifying and replicating the original version, the absolutely perfect yield rate is indeed only seventy-five percent."

"The remaining twenty-five percent, although they cannot run at full concurrency, are actually physically intact and can barely be used at underclocked speeds. It's just that what we urgently need to break through right now is the highest performance computing bottleneck. To save the precious research time of those geeks and not let them get distracted, I just told them to directly throw away that twenty-five percent of defective products... as electronic scrap."

Hearing this "Versailles" addition from Shen Du, Secretary Shen Hai's brain went "buzz," as if a thunderclap had exploded inside his head, and his entire train of thought went completely blank in that instant.

Being able to avoid all international blockades and manually hammer out physical products in an underground laboratory was already a miracle of hard work sufficient to alarm the higher-ups. But now, this kid was actually telling him with a tone of disdain: The perfect yield rate was as high as seventy-five percent, and the remaining twenty-five percent was treated as trash just because of underclocked computing power!

In other words, the physical yield rate of this batch of magically modified chips that bypassed the Western patent wall had reached a scalp-numbing one hundred percent! At this juncture in time, even those Silicon Valley chip giants that dominate the globe and top-tier wafer foundries could absolutely never achieve such terrifying, near-mythical data in extreme tape-out tests of the same new architecture!

This was no longer overtaking on a bend; this was simply flipping the semiconductor table on the foreigners directly!

Secretary Shen Hai stared fixedly at Shen Du, his chest heaving violently and uncontrollably beneath his suit. To prevent this young man, who was as sharp as a fox, from seeing through the cognition that had completely collapsed inside him, and also to be able to immediately withdraw to report this earth-shattering turning point that could reverse the nation's destiny to the old man in the Siheyuan and the highest levels of the Kyoto leadership...

"Hoo—" Secretary Shen Hai closed his eyes and took three deep breaths in a row. Relying on his formidable willpower, he forcefully suppressed the wild joy and shock that could make a person lose their reason back into the depths of his heart. When he opened his eyes again, his gaze had already returned to the depth and cold sharpness of a cold pool.

He directly interrupted this interrogation, which was supposed to be long. He opened a drawer, took out a private business card printed only with a string of numbers, and a special secure mobile phone that was pitch black, heavy, and without any logo, and pushed them across the wide desk to Shen Du.

"Let's stop here for today." Secretary Shen Hai's tone became unquestionable again, even revealing a hint of urgency: "The subsequent matters involve too many levels; we will find another opportunity to communicate when we have time."

Shen Du, sitting opposite, subconsciously reached out and took the heavy mobile phone and business card. His face, which was usually calm, was now filled with undisguised confusion. He looked at Secretary Shen Hai with some astonishment, muttering to himself: It's over just like that?!

He had originally thought that sitting in this conference room today, where not even a fly could fly in, he would inevitably face a storm of official scrutiny, or even the forced technical incorporation of the state apparatus. As a result, he had just thrown out a trump card, and the other party hadn't even had time to ask about the specific parameters before rushing him off just like that?

Filled with confusion, Shen Du stood up and carefully tucked the mobile phone and business card into his inner pocket. Just as he turned to grip the metal handle of the heavy mahogany door, preparing to leave this suffocating office, Secretary Shen Hai's voice came from behind again, lowered but filled with gravity and a murderous intent, offering a final exhortation: "This mobile phone has the highest level of anti-eavesdropping protection. Keep it safe. After you go back, do not mention today's conversation to anyone... Wait for my call."