She was about to continue to ask Lu Zhou how he was going to show the computing performance of Star Voyage One using the number pi. But she could only watch as Academician Lu and his colleagues walked past her, heading toward the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Lu Zhou looked at the staff member that had been standing there for a long time and said, “Give me the scissors.”
This staff member had a long speech planned. But since Academician Lu was reaching out for the scissors, and he was being stared down by Director Sun, he quickly took the scissors out of the box and handed them to Lu Zhou.
Lu Zhou didn’t like to waste time on trivial things. He picked up the scissors and cut the red ribbon tied at the building entrance. He then threw the scissors back into the box.
“The construction of the Star Voyage One building is complete! Thank you all for your hard work.
“We’re all scientific researchers here, so I’ll spare you the speech.
“Let’s focus on the next matter of business.”
After that, under the eyes of the reporters and the invited participants, Lu Zhou turned around and walked into the monument-like building.
The second he stepped into the building, he took out the glasses he won from the system lottery from underneath his shirt collar and said, “Xiao Ai.”
A light blue chat box appeared on the glasses.
[Yes, Master. ( ́・ω・`)]
Lu Zhou: “Let’s turn on our new computer.”
[Okay! (๑•̀ᄇ•́) و✧]
Suddenly, the whole building made an electric buzzing noise. The current in each circuit unit gradually reached its maximum, and the nearby electronic devices were slightly affected by this large influx of electrical energy.
However, most people didn’t notice this effect.
Because their attention was totally on the scene in front of them.
The surface of the glass building began to light up. It was like the building was made from blocks of LED screens. Lines of characters began to move across the screen horizontally.
Everyone was shocked by the sci-fi looking building in front of them. Even people from tens of kilometers away could see the “booting screen”.
“Jesus, f*ck! Is there a display for every single glass panel? How much did that cost?”
“I heard the construction unit that installed the glass for the building said that it used the latest photosensitive semiconductor material that was developed by the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study! It could convert solar energy into electricity during the day and store it, then use the energy to power the screens at night.”
“We have nuclear fusion already, what’s the point of solar energy?”
“Who knows, maybe it’s to promote low-carbon and environmentally friendly energy!”
Almost everyone was admiring the staggering startup screen that was displayed on the building. They excitedly chatted with one another. However, before they could finish their discussions, the image on the building began to change.
A string of numbers traveled toward the top of the building. More numbers began to join, slowly filling the building from the top.
Everyone was shocked. They did not know what Star Sky Technology was doing. Someone took out their phone and zoomed in using the camera. The person then shouted, “3.1415926… That’s pi!”
“Pi? Why is pi appearing here? What exactly is Academician Lu planning to do?”
Before anyone could react…
Lu Zhou…
Or rather, Star Voyage One, answered their questions.
The very bottom of the building displayed the number of digits.
The number continued to increase, attracting everyone’s attention.
In the blink of an eye, this computer had calculated pi to the 2.7x 10^12 digits!
This was the current world record!
Google engineer Emma Ivo used 25 Google Cloud virtual machines and the y-cruncher software to run the Chudnovsky algorithm, which was specially designed for calculating pi. it took 121 days to get the result!
But now, it took Star Voyage One less than a minute to break this record.
Director Sun, an information engineering professor at a nearby university, and a senior engineer from a software company were all astonished.
What they were witnessing was ridiculous.
Many experts in information research fields almost believed that this calculation was done prior to this, and they were only retrieving the calculations.
However, this explanation did not make sense…
Because the calculations were still going on.
As everyone looked at the increasing exponent, their heartbeats began to increase.
20!
40!
60!
99!
Everyone thought that Star Voyage One was going to calculate toward infinite digits. However, the quantum computer stopped its operation, leaving the exponent at a round number of 100.
Which meant it had calculated pi to the 10^100th digit.
Compared to the previous record of 2.7 trillion digits (2.7^12digits), this record was broken by a whole exponent magnitude!
After the birth of supercomputers, this number was progressing at a “snail speed”, hovering around 10^9~10^13 digits…
Lu Zhou stood in the lobby of the building, and he looked at the data passing by on the holographic panels. Lu Zhou suddenly felt in control of the world. In fact, that was sort of true. With the power of this computer, he was almost omnipotent. He could make the world go through a technology blackout.
He just needed to use the huge computing power of the Star Voyage One to hack into various nodes of the global Internet and set up backdoors. Then, he could make the Internet systematically collapse by overloading the servers.
If the computing power of the Star Voyage One was increased to more than 2,000 qubits, without the protection of quantum communication technology, its power was equivalent to a weapon of mass destruction.
Even the most secure cybersecurity defense line constructed by the most talented experts was as fragile as a sheet of paper. This was like soldiers facing an artillery attack, they were hopeless.
The words that appeared on Lu Zhou’s glasses interrupted his thoughts.
Xiao Ai: [Master, should we continue? φ(≧ω≦*)♪]
Lu Zhou snapped back to reality and spoke after thinking.
“Just stop at 10^100 digits; it’s a nice round number.”
Even though calculating pi to more digits could be interesting, the number was nowhere near as meaningful as the computer itself.
This was just a demonstration to the world that the Star Voyage One was more powerful than all of the other supercomputers combined.
Pi to 10^100 digits…
Even if a traditional supercomputer spent a century calculating pi, it would come nowhere close to 10^100 digits.
Xiao Ai: [But it seems like Xiao Ai has accidentally calculated more digits. Σ(°△° )]
Lu Zhou: “In that case, press the backspace key and delete the digits.”
Xiao Ai: [Oh, Master is so smart. (*・∀・)ゞ]
Lu Zhou: “…”
More like you’re not smart enough.
On the other hand, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Before the ribbon-cutting ceremony even began, Star Sky Technology invited the Guinness World Records certification officer to record this magnificent moment.
This story spread all over the world through the Internet and media outlets.
The entire information engineering field was flabbergasted…