Lunch.
Hotel buffet.
Lu Zhou walked in and immediately saw Director Li sitting by the window.
Lu Zhou sat across from him and looked at his eyebags. He paused for a second and asked, “What… happened?”
“Nothing, I didn’t sleep last night.” Director Li tried to wake himself up. He said with a solemn expression, “Remember about the cyber attacks I told you? According to Interpol, the main hacker has been arrested in Los Angeles.”
Lu Zhou: “… Oh.”
Lu Zhou already knew about this.
However, Director Li didn’t notice that, so he continued to speak in a stern tone, “One of the criminals was located domestically, and as for the other criminals, we submitted their information to Interpol and the LAPD took over the case.”
Lu Zhou: “Ok.”
Director Li: “Don’t you think it’s strange?”
Lu Zhou: “…”
What’s so strange?
They’ve been talking about this on TV all morning, what’s so strange about it.
Director Li stared at Lu Zhou and suddenly spoke.
“Honestly, how did you find out who the hackers were?”
Lu Zhou paused for a second and reacted quickly. He tried to act confused.
“I saw it online, why? I read about it this morning.”
However, Director Li didn’t give up. Instead, he said, “Speaking of which, we received help from an expert. If it weren’t for their help, we would still be in shambles.”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “Yeah, I heard about it. It’s someone called Dr. Z, right? One man taking down the entire Eagle Hunter group, he has to be an expert.”
Director Li looked slightly disappointed, but he quickly recovered.
It didn’t really matter if Lu Zhou was Dr. Z or not. Also, it was entirely possible that Dr. Z could be an expert from the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.
Director Li just wanted to satisfy his curiosity.
Even if Lu Zhou really was Dr. Z, if Lu Zhou didn’t plan on making this public, Director Li certainly didn’t want to ask any more questions.
Director Li cleared his throat and began talking.
“Even though we were victorious in this cyberwar, we have to learn from this experience and strengthen our cybersecurity defenses. This attack threatened much sensitive information and destabilized society. The Communist Party of China is ready to…”
Lu Zhou coughed and said, “I know the rough situation, but I’m just a mathematician, so you’re… speaking to the wrong person.”
I don’t know why…
But I feel like Director Li knows that I’m Dr. Z.
This isn’t good…
I’m going to reveal myself eventually…
But now is not the time.
“Listen to me.” Director Li put on a serious face and said, “In order to deal with any possible threats, the Communist Party of China intends to invest heavily in quantum computing technology. This is to strengthen our network defense and counterattack abilities.”
Strengthen quantum computing technology?
Lu Zhou was supportive of this idea, but something didn’t feel right.
Lu Zhou hesitated for a bit and asked, “But it’s not going to be cheap.”
Forget about the lunar collider, the semiconductor industry cluster was still underway.
Lu Zhou alone spent more than 100 billion yuan on state-funded projects last year, and it wasn’t like the government could just keep printing money like this.
“Um… I have to thank you for this.” Director Li smiled and said, “Ever since the Southeast Asia Regional Power Grid Plan was implemented, it has achieved tremendous results. Numerous Southeast Asian countries have access to cheap and clean energy. This has created at least US$50 billion in revenue and is expected to grow. We have quite a lot of funding for state scientific research projects.”
Lu Zhou nodded.
No wonder!
No wonder they have so much money to burn.
If this was two years ago, there was no way he could have gotten the Lunar Hadron Collider project approved.
So far, the aerospace projects had barely broken even, and Lu Zhou still needed more time to prove that his decisions were correct.
I guess nuclear fusion is still where the money is.
Cheap and clean energy was being exported to neighboring countries at 1/10th the price of coal power plants. As the power grid continued to expand in Western and Southeast Asia, sooner or later East Asia Energy would become the largest company in the world.
Director Li: “All in all, you don’t have to worry about funding, money is not a problem. Didn’t we talk about this last time? Isn’t that carbon-based chip suitable for quantum computing? I just want to ask, is it realistic to use the carbon-based chips to develop topological quantum computers?”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “What can I say… Of course I’m going to say it’s realistic.”
Director Li said in a serious manner, “I trust that you’re a scholar that seeks the truth. You wouldn’t betray god for a small profit.”
Actually, Lu Zhou wanted to say that this wasn’t going to be a small profit and that he was an atheist. He didn’t believe in god.
However, there was one thing Director Li was right about.
Lu Zhou was a scholar that sought the truth.
Lu Zhou sighed and said, “Majorana fermions can be found in the material used for carbon-based chips, so this is a great starting point. As long as we can directly observe the zero-energy mode of pure Majorana fermions, it is possible to create quantum topology calculations.”
Director Li began to feel excited, and he put his hands on his knees and asked, “So what you’re saying is, this will work?”
“I never said that.” Lu Zhou said, “Finding out its feasibility will take a lot of theoretical calculations. You can’t just throw money at it and hope for the best.”
Director Li calmed down and thought for a second.
“Then, what do you think we should do?”
Lu Zhou said, “My suggestion is to take it easy, find some experts and carefully research the technical feasibility side, and find a technical route. After that, you can invest all the money you want.”
This was the safest and least risky approach.
If the technical route proved to be feasible, the theoretical expert team would be put on research and development and the project would be on its way.
Investing money without a direction could induce an overflow of capital, thus wasting social resources.
“You’re right…” Director Li sighed and said, “We should take it slow and easy.”
After contemplating for a second, he spoke.
“After I go back to the office, I’ll type up some documents and form a quantum computer theoretical expert team… Do you have any recommendations?”
Lu Zhou said, “Professor Wu Tianqun, the carbon-based semiconductor technology was created by his team. Also some experts in the field of quantum computing. I can’t name any names right now, but I’ll send you a list later.”
Director Li was overjoyed that Lu Zhou was willing to help.
“Thank you so much!”
After lunch, Director Li didn’t stay for any longer. He quickly got into his car and drove away.
Seeing how he didn’t sleep all night, Lu Zhou was a little worried about him.
For a man of his age, he should be more careful.
Lu Zhou shook his head and took out his phone. He set a reminder for himself to send over a list of quantum computing experts.
However, he suddenly had a strange thought.
If I only recommend people that I know, wouldn’t that monopolize the entire future of the quantum computing field?
However, this thought quickly disappeared…
For some reason, he suddenly remembered one person.
Which was Academician Zhou, the person that fought with him on the controllable fusion project.
Lu Zhou shook his head and put his phone in his pocket.
“No wonder everyone wants to become a genius.
“Power really is an addictive thing…
“Fortunately, power is not that appealing to me.”