71: Silicon Town Alliance Rebellion

Under the dual impact of Star Code and "Stardust Chip", Silicon Valley's tech giants finally realized that they were facing an unprecedented technological revolution.

Apple Headquarters, Cupertino

Cook stared at the plummeting stock price on the financial report, his finger gently tapping the table. In the conference room, Google CEO Pichai, Microsoft CEO Nadella, Meta's Zuckerberg, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, and OpenAI's Altman were all present.

"Gentlemen," Cook's voice was low, "Over the past three months, our market value has evaporated by 30%, and investors are starting to question our technological leadership."

Pichai gave a bitter smile: "Star AI has directly changed the game rules; their 'Stardust Chip' makes traditional computing power meaningless."

"So we just give up like this?" Zuckerberg said coldly, "Meta has invested tens of billions in the VR field, and now their holographic projection technology has directly made our devices obsolete."

Nadella suddenly tapped the table: "No, we still have a chance."

Everyone looked at him.

"Star AI is strong in hardware optimization, but the essence of AI is still software." He slowly said, "If we can build a powerful enough model to surpass them in at least some areas, we can regain market confidence."

"Are you saying..." Altman narrowed his eyes, "make a model smarter than Star AI?"

"Exactly." Nadella nodded, "We will combine all resources to build a super AI, which we'll call 'TalkGPT'."

Three days later, the core members of the Silicon Valley Alliance gathered again.

Jensen Huang brought the latest compute card cluster solution: "The H50's computing power is currently the strongest, but Star AI's hardware efficiency is too high, so we must overwhelm them in scale."

"How exactly do we do that?" Pichai asked.

"Simple." Jensen Huang spread out the data sheet, "Star AI used 100 billion parameters; we'll use 1 trillion. They used 1,000 GPUs for training; we'll use 10,000."

Altman frowned: "But this will make training costs explode."

"Money is not an issue." Nadella said calmly, "Microsoft can bear 40% of the computing costs."

"Google will contribute 30%." Pichai immediately followed up.

"Meta 20%." Zuckerberg said.

"Apple 10%." Cook added at last.

Altman took a deep breath: "Okay, then OpenAI will be responsible for model architecture optimization."

Google contributed a trillion-level corpus, Microsoft provided enterprise-level cloud computing support, and Apple was responsible for optimizing terminal deployment... Finally, the TalkGPT project officially launched.

Microsoft Azure Supercomputing Center. On the first day of training, the Engineers stared at the monitoring screens, speechless with awe as the indicator lights of 10,000 H50 GPUs lit up simultaneously.

"This computing power... is enough to simulate the power grid of a small country," a Microsoft Engineer murmured.

"The electricity bill will also be spectacular," another Google Engineer said with a bitter smile, "easily exceeding 100 million."

The data team, meanwhile, frantically cleaned and labeled data.

"The corpus has been expanded to 1 trillion tokens!" a Meta data scientist reported, "That's 1,000 times that of GPT-2."

"Not enough." Altman shook his head, "Add more multimodal data, especially code and mathematical reasoning parts."

"But this will extend the training time..."

"Then add more computing power." Jensen Huang directly ordered, "Transfer another 2,000 H50s over."

With the full effort of almost the entire Silicon Valley, results that would have taken several years were achieved in just one month.

OpenAI Lab, late at night.

Altman stared at the final test report, his brows furrowed.

"Inference speed is still not fast enough, 30% slower than Star AI."

Microsoft's technical director suggested in a low voice: "Then, optimize the test standards."

"What do you mean?" Altman looked up.

"Shrink the comparison dataset, only select tasks we are good at, such as text generation and basic code completion." The technical director lowered his voice, "Avoid high-difficulty reasoning and real-time computing."

Altman was silent.

"Do you know what this means?" He slowly said, "If users discover the real performance gap..."

"Release first, then iterate later." Nadella pushed open the door, his voice calm, "The market needs confidence; we can't wait until it's perfect to act."

Altman closed his eyes for a moment, then finally nodded: "Okay."

Silicon Valley Tech Summit, global live broadcast.

Nadella stood on stage, a large screen behind him displaying performance comparisons:

Text Understanding: TalkGPT 98% vs Star AI 95%

Code Generation: TalkGPT 90% vs Star AI 92%

"Today, we are honored to announce the official release of TalkGPT!" Nadella announced loudly, "It is fully compatible with existing hardware and doesn't require any 'Stardust Chip'!"

The audience applauded thunderously, and the live stream's bullet comments flooded the screen:

[Finally, a counterattack!]

[Silicon Valley is still awesome!]

[Star AI users express skepticism...]

But backstage, the Engineers exchanged a nervous glance. They knew the real test had only just begun.

After the Silicon Valley Tech Summit, global tech media reported frantically:

"Silicon Valley Alliance Strikes Back! TalkGPT Officially Released, Performance Benchmarked Against Star AI!"

"Microsoft, Google, Meta Jointly Create Trillion-Parameter Model, AI War Enters New Phase"

"Will Star AI's Monopoly Be Broken? Silicon Valley Giants' Desperate Counterattack"

Golden Serpent Street reacted quickly, and tech stocks collectively rebounded. Apple, Microsoft, and Google's stock prices rose by over 10% in a single day, with Meta surging by 15%. Investors breathed a sigh of relief, saying, "Silicon Valley finally got its revenge!"

However, in OpenAI's laboratory, Altman stared at the first batch of user feedback, his brows furrowing tighter and tighter.

"Why is the inference speed so much slower than expected?" He tapped the data on the screen, "Our test environment was clearly 20% faster than Star AI."

The Engineer wiped his sweat: "Because... we optimized for specific tasks, but users are testing across all scenarios."

Altman's face darkened: "So, the actual performance gap is still very large?"

The Engineer didn't dare to answer, only silently pulled up a set of comparison data.

Altman took a deep breath: "So, we only won on text, and lost everything else?"

The Engineer gave a bitter smile: "What's worse, Star AI's 'Stardust Chip' optimized the underlying computing architecture, and our model running on traditional GPUs is inherently 30% less efficient."

Altman was silent for a moment, then suddenly sneered: "It doesn't matter; the market only needs a 'competent' alternative. Users won't care about the details."

One week after the Silicon Valley Tech Summit, global users began comprehensive testing of TalkGPT.

Popular video on a certain platform:

Title: TalkGPT vs. Star AI Real Comparison Test (with data)

"Brothers, I did a comprehensive test, and here are the results."

Task 1: Write a ray tracing renderer

TalkGPT: Generated code, but crashed at runtime (lacked GPU optimization).

Star AI: Directly generated an executable file, with performance optimization suggestions.

Task 2: Predict next week's stock market fluctuations

TalkGPT: "As an AI, I cannot predict financial markets."

Star AI: Provided detailed probability analysis, 87% accuracy, then quickly retracted it.

Task 3: Solve a complex mathematical problem (simplified Riemann Hypothesis)

TalkGPT: Generated a seemingly plausible pseudo-proof.

Star AI: Directly pointed out the problem was unsolvable and provided an approximate derivation.

Conclusion:

"TalkGPT is indeed excellent at text generation, but when it comes to complex reasoning and real-time computing, it is still crushed by Star AI."

The comment section exploded:

[Sure enough, Silicon Valley is playing word games again!]

[TalkGPT is just an advanced chatbot; Star AI is the real intelligence!]

[Golden Serpent Street has started selling off tech stocks...]

[Laughing to death, the Silicon Valley Alliance spent hundreds of billions, only to be utterly dominated by Star AI]

[Microsoft: We tried our best! Star AI: No, you didn't]

MyTube tech blogger “TechBoy” released a video titled “TalkGPT’s Epic Fail,” which garnered over ten million views.

In the video, he tried to use TalkGPT to optimize his quantitative trading strategy, but the AI’s suggestions led to a 30% loss in his simulated account.

The comments section was flooded:

“Is this AI here to make us laugh?”

“Star AI: Not a single one is good!”

“Silicon Valley Alliance: We built a more expensive Siri!”

In the Roman Palace war room, the President of the Nova United States stared at the SIA Director Robert Hayes’s report, his face ashen.

“So, we spent hundreds of billions, only to create an AI that’s still inferior to the Eastern Federation’s?”

National Security Advisor Mark Reynolds whispered, “Mr. President, a technological gap certainly exists, but we can suppress it in other ways.”

“What ways?”

“Sanctions.” Reynolds sneered, “Just like we dealt with Huawei.”

Minister of Defense Grayson interjected, “A complete blockade. Prohibit Eastern Federation companies from using Nova United States chips, EDA tools, and even prohibit FrogSemi from manufacturing for them.”

Biden was silent for a moment, then slowly nodded: “Then let’s do that.”

The next day, the Roman Palace issued an executive order: “Emergency Measures Regarding the Restriction of Eastern Federation AI Technology Development.”

It prohibited Nova United States companies from selling chips and related technologies to companies like EastWei and Tenglong.

It prohibited FrogSemi and Four Star from manufacturing for Eastern Federation AI companies.

It prohibited Nova United States cloud service providers (AWS, Azure) from providing computing power support to Eastern Federation AI.

The Golden Snake Street Daily’s front page read: “[Nova United States Launches Full Sanctions Against Eastern Federation AI Industry].” Immediately after, global stock markets fluctuated.

Microsoft and Google’s stock prices surged by 8%.

FrogSemi’s stock price plunged by 8%.

Eastern Federation tech stocks briefly fell before quickly rebounding.

Twitter was abuzz:

“Nova United States: If you can’t beat them, ban them?”

“History repeats itself, Huawei 2.0?”

“Star AI: You sanction, you sanction, I continue to lead.”

Two hours after the Roman Palace’s sanction order was issued, the Eastern Federation Semiconductor Industry Summit was urgently convened.

The conference hall was packed, and Ministry of Commerce Minister Zhou Jianjun strode onto the podium, and the hall immediately quieted down.

“Fellow colleagues,” Zhou Jianjun’s voice was steady with a hint of sternness, “Just three hours ago, the Nova United States Ministry of Commerce listed 72 of our technology companies on the entity list.”

A low murmur of discussion immediately arose in the hall.

“But this time,” he raised his voice, “we are no longer who we were a few years ago.”

A set of data lit up on the large screen: In 2023, the Eastern Federation’s semiconductor self-sufficiency rate had reached 68%, an increase of 40 percentage points from three years ago.

“Especially Interstellar Peace Corporation,” Zhou Jianjun looked towards the front row, “their developed Star Code and Stardust Architecture have opened up a completely new technological path for us.”

The camera turned to Ada Wong, who was sitting in the first row; she nodded slightly in acknowledgment.

When it was her turn to speak as a representative, Ada Wong slowly walked onto the stage, her black suit accentuating her capable demeanor.

“Thank you, Minister Zhou. Before I introduce our technology,” she paused, “I want to clarify a misunderstanding: Interstellar Peace does not produce chips.”

A surprised murmur immediately arose in the hall.

“We only do two things: Star Code and Stardust Architecture.” She lightly tapped the holographic projection on her wrist, and a complex chip design diagram unfolded in the air, “This is a processor architecture based on a completely new computing paradigm, but the actual manufacturing still relies on our partners.”

EastWei’s rotating Chairman Xu Zhijun suddenly raised his hand to ask, “General Manager Ai, then why did Star AI appear in the technology provided by Titan to EastWei? Is there a story behind this?”

Ada Wong’s lips curved slightly upwards: “That’s a very interesting question. Actually, this is thanks to a, hmm, an adventure of our Technical Director Silver Wolf.”

The holographic projection switched to an animated demonstration.

“Last March,” Ada Wong recounted, “Silver Wolf encountered an intrusion by a mysterious hacker while testing system security.”

The screen showed two virtual figures fiercely clashing in cyberspace, with code exploding like fireworks.

“The two battled for three days and three nights, and in the end…” Ada Wong chuckled, “they actually developed a mutual admiration. The hacker later revealed that he had been researching a new type of computing architecture.”

SMIC CEO Liang Mengsong couldn’t help but interject, “So Star AI is…”

“It’s the product of their cooperation.” Ada Wong nodded, “Silver Wolf contributed the algorithmic ideas, and the other party provided the hardware design concepts. The biggest feature of this architecture is that it allows AI to directly understand code intent at the hardware level.”

“As for the origin of that mysterious hacker, I think everyone understands. Objectively speaking, Titan’s information technology is indeed unparalleled.”

The entire hall was in an uproar.

The Ziguang Group representative raised his hand: “General Manager Ai, this architecture must require very high manufacturing processes, right?”

“Quite the opposite.” Ada Wong brought up a set of comparison data, “The performance of the Stardust Architecture on 28nm process is equivalent to the level of a traditional architecture’s 5nm.”

She clicked the projection, displaying a comparison of a piece of code running on the two architectures: the traditional architecture required multiple layers of conversion, while the Stardust Architecture executed almost directly.

“Of course, this is only a comparison in traditional computing. If we consider the synergy of Star Code and AI, a 28nm chip’s actual performance is more than 50 times that of a 5nm chip.”

“This is why,” Ada Wong surveyed the room, “we dare to say that we are completely unrestricted by manufacturing processes. SMIC’s fully domestically produced 14nm production line can completely meet the vast majority of application scenarios.”

Warm applause erupted in the hall. Xu Zhijun voluntarily walked onto the stage, standing side by side with Ada Wong.

“Let me say something fair,” he said into the microphone, “When Titan suddenly contacted us about cooperation, we were still very hesitant. Everyone knows how EastWei has been doing these past few years.”

Good-natured laughter broke out in the hall.

“But now it seems,” Xu Zhijun said with a serious expression, “it is precisely this open and cooperative attitude that allows us to calmly deal with today’s sanctions. EastWei’s new generation Kirin chips will adopt the Stardust Architecture.”

As the meeting was in progress, urgent news was released across the ocean. After receiving a message from his assistant, Minister Xu almost burst out laughing. Without a word, he had his assistant put the live news broadcast on the big screen.

“[Nova United States Ministry of Commerce Announces Expansion of Sanctions, Prohibiting Any Company Using Nova United States Technology from Providing Services to Eastern Federation AI Companies]”

The meeting hall instantly fell silent.

Ada Wong, however, smiled: “It seems someone is getting anxious.” She turned to Zhou Jianjun, “Minister, may I borrow your screen for a moment?”

After getting permission, she brought up a video: in Interstellar Peace’s R&D center, hundreds of Engineers were working in a development environment never before seen in the semiconductor industry.

“Do you see that?” Ada Wong pointed to the screen, a smile on her face, “Our entire toolchain, from design software to simulation systems, none of it relies on Nova United States technology. If our friendly companies need it, Interstellar Peace Corporation can provide technical support. Of course, a service fee will still be required.”

“Hahahahaha!” The entire hall burst into laughter.

At the end of the meeting, Zhou Jianjun gave the concluding remarks:

“Today’s sanctions are not an end, but a new beginning. Let us remember: core technology cannot be bought, but it can be created by ourselves.”

After the meeting, reporters swarmed Ada Wong.

“General Manager Ai, can you reveal the identity of that mysterious hacker?”

“What are Interstellar Peace’s next plans?”

“Will the Stardust Architecture be open for licensing?”

Ada Wong just smiled mysteriously: “When it’s time to know, you will naturally know.”

At this moment, on the rooftop of the Interstellar Peace Corporation building, Silver Wolf was playing a game with headphones on, mumbling: “This game is quite interesting. Let’s try it at double speed…”