163: Chapter 163: Room-Temperature Superconducting Materials Have Been Developed!

Lin Yuan didn't make them wait too long.

He stood up from his chair, picked up a canvas bag from the table with one hand, and walked unhurriedly toward the row of brand-new server cabinets against the hall's side wall that had just been assembled last night.

Approaching them, he bent down to place the canvas bag on the floor, unzipped it, and fished out another hard drive from inside.

At that moment, the sound of breathing in the entire hall lightened collectively.

Without looking up, Lin Yuan inserted the hard drive into the high-speed interface slot at the front of the cabinet and tapped twice quickly on the nearby operation terminal with his fingertips.

A series of encrypted verification commands raced across the screen.

“Beep—Verification passed.”

A few seconds later, he withdrew his hand, took a step back, and tilted his chin toward the massive projection screen in the center of the hall.

“Everyone, please look at the big screen.”

Forty or fifty people turned their heads in unison.

The originally black screen on the massive projection screen suddenly jumped to life.

First, a minimalist data panel popped up.

With a deep blue background, several sets of real-time refreshing parameter windows were arranged left and right, with numbers jumping frantically in milliseconds.

Immediately after, a row of multi-channel real-time curves unfolded below the panel.

Plasma temperature distribution curves, magnetic field confinement strength fluctuation curves, energy input-output comparison curves...

Six lines of different colors simultaneously began to climb, oscillate, correct, and climb again.

Every fluctuation of the lines represented an extremely complex simulation of a physical environment!

To the right of the curves, a counter labeled “Current Iteration Round” was jumping upward at a visible speed.

One, two, three...

In just a few dozen seconds, the counter had already jumped to double digits.

Seeing this, He Mingde sprang up from his chair, dashed to the position closest to the big screen in two steps, gripped the edge of the console tightly with both hands, and leaned his head forward.

He stared fixedly at the multi-channel real-time curves on the screen, his pupils contracting sharply.

“This is...”

“A simulation experiment of fully superconducting steady-state operation? How is it so fast?!”

Lin Yuan looked at his loss of composure and nodded with a light smile.

“Yes.”

Just one word, crisp and neat.

He Mingde's mouth opened, closed, and opened again.

He turned his head back, stared at the screen for another two seconds, and then looked at Lin Yuan again.

“Then these experimental data... were they automatically run by that computing power infrastructure, the Brain-like Artificial Intelligence?”

“That's right.”

Lin Yuan put one hand in his pocket and tilted his chin toward the server cabinets.

“The hard drive I just inserted contains pre-stored parameter ranges and constraints I set.”

He paused for a beat, glancing at the dozens of stunned faces below the stage.

“The Brain-like Artificial Intelligence will automatically generate each set of parameter combinations according to the ranges and conditions I set, and then feed them into the simulation environment to run experiments.”

“After each round, it will analyze the results of the previous round itself, judging which parameters need to be adjusted, how to adjust them, and by how much.”

“Then, it will generate the next set of better solutions and automatically run the next round.”

“The entire process requires no further human intervention at all.”

As Lin Yuan's voice fell.

The iteration round counter on the projection screen had already jumped from double digits to triple digits during the time he spoke.

Dozens of old fellows who had spent most of their lives in scientific research looked at each other, their mouths wide open, but no one could squeeze out a complete sentence.

What had they been doing their whole lives?

A lifetime of manually adjusting parameters, manually running experiments, manually analyzing data, manually writing reports, and then manually designing the next round of experimental plans.

Each iteration took a few hours at least, and several days or even weeks at most.

And now, the counter on the screen told them.

After deploying Lin Yuan's computing power infrastructure, the Artificial Intelligence had already automatically completed hundreds of iterations in just these few minutes.

He Mingde stood motionless in front of the big screen, staring at the data for a full half-minute.

Then he slowly turned around, the expression on his face extremely complex.

“Academician Lin...”

He spoke, his voice deepening.

“If you do it this way... then in the future, won't much of our research work be replaced by this Artificial Intelligence?”

When this question was thrown out, the already heavy atmosphere in the hall dropped a few more notches.

Several older experts looked at each other, an indescribable emotion flashing in their eyes.

Lin Yuan looked at them but shook his head gently.

“No.”

“Direction and goals must always be determined by people.”

“What should be researched, what shouldn't, how to prioritize, which path human civilization should take next... these are things Artificial Intelligence cannot do.”

“It must be clear that it is always just a tool for human use.”

“We must never let the tool control us in turn!”

Lin Yuan's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a soul-shaking power.

“For Artificial Intelligence...”

“What we need to do is hand over the most tedious and energy-consuming repetitive tasks for it to handle.”

“Such as adjusting parameters, running simulations, analysis and comparison, iterative optimization...”

“These grueling tasks that used to require countless all-nighters to complete no longer need human supervision.”

He paused, a smile spreading across his lips.

“Even when everyone gets off work and goes back to have a comfortable sleep at night, it can continue running in the dark on its own.”

“The next morning when you come in, just hold your teacup and look at the results.”

Lin Yuan said these words nonchalantly.

But who among the people present was a fool?

No one spoke, but the faces of everyone simultaneously surged with emotions that were complex to the extreme.

Now, they finally thoroughly understood the weight of Lin Yuan's words earlier: “The times have changed.”

In the past, what did scientific research rely on?

It was talent, experience, and the accumulation of trial and error built up by generation after generation with their lives.

For a top scientist to spend their entire life's energy to make one major breakthrough was already enough to go down in history.

But now?

The number of iteration rounds Artificial Intelligence runs in one night is even more than what a laboratory manually runs in a month.

This isn't just an improvement in efficiency.

This is a subversion of the entire scientific research paradigm.

He Mingde stared at the projection screen for a full half-minute, his chest heaving several times.

Then he turned back and looked at Lin Yuan.

“Academician Lin.”

His throat was no longer dry; instead, it was replaced by an extremely intense heat, as if he had been completely ignited.

“You've brought such a divine tool of scientific research before us and paved the way into a celestial highway.”

“If we still can't produce results on time... wouldn't we be letting you down, letting the country down?!”

Hearing this, Lin Yuan smiled and nodded heavily.

No extra words.

No extra words were needed.

...

Time flew by in the high-speed flow of data.

From the first day of official work, the Test Hall of the Institute of Atomic Energy had completely changed.

During the day, dozens of experts worked in groups.

The Materials Group kept an eye on the preparation progress, while the Technical Group analyzed and judged the simulation results run by the Artificial Intelligence on the big screen, verifying, confirming, and labeling round after round.

At night, the people left, but the machines didn't stop.

On that row of black server cabinets, indicator lights flickered incessantly all night, and the cooling fans hummed lowly as the Artificial Intelligence ran simulation, analysis, and iteration rounds one after another on its own.

Early the next morning, when the experts pushed open the door, the big screen was already densely packed with new data and conclusions from overnight.

At this time, Lin Yuan would lead everyone to put the latest batch of results automatically run by the Artificial Intelligence last night on the table and go through them together.

Which directions showed signs of breakthrough, which paths could be excluded in advance, which range to focus on next...

Under Lin Yuan's coordination, the research efficiency of dozens of people was pulled to an inconceivable height.

Every day, the data on the big screen converged toward more precise directions.

Every day, the expressions on the faces of those old experts as they walked into the hall gained a layer of certainty compared to the day before.

And in Lin Yuan's mind, the system's confidence was also rapidly increasing in this fanatical atmosphere.

...

On the morning of the seventh day.

Lin Yuan arrived at the Test Hall before eight o'clock as usual.

Just as he stepped through the door, he saw He Mingde and several experts from the Technical Group gathered in front of the big screen, excitedly whispering to each other about a set of fresh overnight data.

Lin Yuan didn't make a sound and walked straight to his seat.

Before his backside even touched the chair, a series of hurried footsteps suddenly came from the direction of the hall entrance.

Zhou Changming was charging at the front, the hem of his white lab coat fluttering in the wind, holding a silver-gray sealed container in both hands as he rushed into the hall in a half-run.

Behind him followed three or four researchers from the Materials Group, each carrying sample boxes of different specifications, jogging all the way.

Zhou Changming headed straight for Lin Yuan, skidding to a halt three steps away from the long table.

He gasped for air a couple of times and placed the sealed container steadily on the table with both hands.

Then he looked up, his wrinkled old face flushed red, and his eyes shining incredibly bright.

“Academician Lin!”

“The Room-Temperature Superconducting Material... it's been prepared!”