Chapter 41: Getting Online
These larger chips came in various specifications, with differing numbers of transistors inside.
In addition to some general-purpose chips, Li Qingsong also created a gigantic chip that could be called a "supercomputer."
This chip was so huge that a single room couldn’t even hold it; a dedicated hall had to be built just to house it!
Its power consumption was so horrifying that it required a dedicated, extremely thick power cable.
It was three meters high, about ten meters long, and five meters wide, with a total internal volume of 150 cubic meters!
But despite its immense size, it was built using the same method, still composed of individual circuit boards, resistors, capacitors, and jumper wires.
The only difference was the terrifying quantity.
In a supercomputer like this, the number of circuit boards alone exceeded 90,000, and the number of transistors, capacitors, and resistors reached 80 million.
million transistors, hand-soldered one by one onto circuit boards by the Clones, and then connected by over a hundred million jumper wires.
The computer also incorporated a redundant design. If an error occurred, specially designed redundancy protocols could bypass the faulty components, ensuring overall operation was unaffected.
This unprecedented supercomputer was installed in the largest factory Li Qingsong currently owned: Steel Mill No. 1.
In addition to this supercomputer, more than 200,000 chips of various sizes were installed throughout Steel Mill No. 1.
Material feeding, screening, smelting, conveying, chemical management—the list went on.
Ultimately, data from all the chips would be transmitted through network cables to the supercomputer for final processing, then displayed before the Clones’ eyes on various gauges or screens.
Of course, Li Qingsong couldn’t build true screens yet, but primitive ones were no problem.
These screens had ten thousand pixels, and each pixel had two states: on or off.
This made them simple to manufacture, as all that was needed was to control whether each corresponding pixel was on or off.
These screens could only display simple black and white text or numbers and nothing else. But it didn’t matter; it was enough.
And so, from this moment on, the production methods at the upgraded and retrofitted Steel Mill No. 1 underwent an earth-shaking transformation.
A large number of frontline Clone positions were eliminated outright. Many of the remaining Clones could now sit in the main control room or various sub-control rooms, simply watching the instrument panels and screens, pressing buttons and flipping switches according to the data. This not only greatly reduced their workload but also drastically decreased their fatigue.
After completing the information technology upgrade of Steel Mill No. 1, Li Qingsong didn’t stop, immediately beginning the upgrade of every other factory.
Millions upon millions of encapsulated, iron-cased chips, like a spring rain, were integrated into every factory, every railway line, every collective dormitory, every breeding farm, and every cultivation base.
With the integration of these chips, the production methods across the entire base complex were completely transformed.
Temperature control in the cultivation bases no longer required manual intervention from the Clones; it was now handled automatically by the chips.
Power grid dispatching no longer required Clones to manually reroute lines; the chips could handle the task.
In the power plants, generator output no longer required Clones to make decisions based on detailed calculations of grid data; it was now autonomously controlled by the chips.
Even the oxygenation of aquaculture ponds, the scheduling of railway trains, the conveyor belts in the steel mills, the machining in the foundries...
In addition to the factories, iron-cased chips were also widely integrated into all sorts of vehicles.
Adjusting oxygen and methane consumption, coordinating gears for automatic shifting, regulating pressure, the steering system...
After introducing the chips, the difficulty of driving the vehicles dropped to less than 30 percent of what it was before.
Across the entire base complex, countless tedious jobs were handed over to the chips, and countless Clones were "freed up" as a result.
For this information technology upgrade, Li Qingsong even built a dedicated network cable factory, laying an extensive web of cables that covered the main base and all sub-bases, just like the power grid.
Looking at the automatically dispatched trains, the vehicles that were now much easier to drive, the automated conveyor belts, and the sprawling network of cables, Li Qingsong smiled with deep satisfaction.
"Ceres finally has internet access..."
According to Li Qingsong’s preliminary calculations, the introduction of chips and the network had increased the production efficiency of the entire base complex by at least fivefold.
In other words, although Li Qingsong only had 60,000 Clones at the moment, the industrial capacity they could exert was equivalent to at least 300,000 Clones before the information technology upgrade!
Even though the large-scale Clone cultivation factory had not yet been built, Li Qingsong had already achieved a massive increase in productivity ahead of schedule.
What’s more, the chips he was currently making were only the most rudimentary kind.
The next generation of planar integrated circuit chips was already under development.
The so-called planar method was the one used in modern technology: first creating silicon ingots, then slicing them into silicon wafers, and then using methods like photolithography, etching, and various chemicals to fabricate transistors directly onto the wafer.
Without a doubt, this method could integrate far more transistors, and its efficiency was something that hand-soldering transistors onto a circuit board could never compare to.
Once chip technology improved, the work capacity of a single Clone would skyrocket even further.
’Then... it’s time to begin construction of the Clone cultivation factory complex.’
Now, possessing a productive capacity equivalent to 300,000 of his former Clones, Li Qingsong finally felt confident enough to tackle his next grand project: a super-giant factory with a total area of ten million square meters and an annual output of one hundred thousand Clones, along with its many supporting factories.
After switching to a new body, Li Qingsong estimated he could now control a minimum of ninety thousand Clones simultaneously.
’Even if it’s just ninety thousand, multiply that by five, and it’s 450,000.’
’Once enough Clones are produced, I’ll immediately have the productive capacity equivalent to 450,000 of the old Clones!’
’And back when I only had 21,000 Clones, I was able to build a massive mechanized army and annihilate a million monstrous birds in one fell swoop.’
’Once I have the productivity equivalent to 450,000 Clones, just how far will my production and industrial capabilities skyrocket?’
Li Qingsong raised his head and gazed into the vast, boundless Deep Space.
’By then, I should have the ability to build all sorts of aircraft and truly step into space...’
Lowering his gaze, Li Qingsong looked toward the massive construction site, an area spanning ten million square meters.
Tens of thousands of Clones had already arrived, driving various machines and carrying all kinds of materials.