Novels online

Chapter 226: Contemplation

Seres had never intended to defeat the humans on land in a short period, even though it still remembered a considerable amount of transcendent knowledge.

Existing in an oceanic environment so utterly different from the land on a regular planet, it was fraught with difficulties for it to lead the Sea Race in climbing the tech tree like the humans on land.

Steam power and electrical energy, easily obtained on land, were utterly unusable directly in the ocean. Metal smelting, too, was an impossibility in the marine environment.

If not for the extreme xenophobia of the existing intelligent life—humans—who would never trust an alien bug like itself, it would have even considered switching sides to their camp.

Aside from their overwhelming numbers, the Sea Race's disparity compared to humans on land was simply too vast, and their internal conflicts were also rife.

Nevertheless, after introducing primitive religious concepts, as the High Priest, it had also gained an exalted status among the various races.

With the help of a large number of "laborers," it was able to lay out one colossal plan after another, while simultaneously collecting the rare minerals it needed from all over the world to accelerate its recovery.

At this moment, within the experimental ground, Bai Mo was designing and constructing a supercomputer of his own conception.

"Mr. Bai, while we're very grateful for this massive order of five million custom-made chips, I must still remind you that, per your instructions, these specialized chips have no cooling modules installed, to minimize their volume as much as possible."

"That's my concern. Your task is to provide the materials I requested."

"Without the hindrance of a cooling system, the chips' volume is less than ten percent of their original size," Bai Mo muttered to himself.

"If you possess such heat dissipation technology, would you consider a transaction with us? The price will certainly satisfy you," Zhao Ru Yi, the general manager of the American chip manufacturer's largest Huaxia branch, posed the question she had prepared long ago.

This question largely concerned the company's vital interests, so even though she knew the possibility of him agreeing was slim, she still insisted on asking.

"Apologies, not currently under consideration."

"No problem. Still, thank you for providing our company with such a large order, valued at two hundred million US dollars."

During this period, Bai Mo had consciously dedicated a portion of his energy to the realm of supercomputing, as he still believed that AI was lacking breakthrough progress, and an AI capable of satisfying his needs was unlikely to emerge within the next two decades.

He figured it would be better to do the opposite: connect human brains with computers, vastly enhancing the connected individual's thinking capabilities to achieve an effect similar to an auxiliary chip from science fiction novels.

Even though he had already reached the Myriad Thoughts realm, with his cognitive abilities being dozens of times that of ordinary people, Bai Mo still felt it was utterly insufficient. He wanted to accomplish too much, but the thoughts he could process were too few, which was the fundamental reason he pursued this direction.

To bridge the impassable chasm in information transfer between the human brain and computers, over thirty percent of his thoughts had consistently been dedicated to researching Sheldon's Spirit Hub, which he had killed back then.

His abilities were precisely the bridge for rapid information transmission between organic and inorganic entities!

After months of nearly ceaseless research, and with numerous test subjects "sacrificing themselves" for the cause, he finally created a preliminary connection device between the human brain and an ordinary home computer.

Bai Mo himself had also personally experienced the sensation of using a home computer as an external thinking device. However, after practical testing, Bai Mo found that, given his current circumstances, ordinary computers did not provide a satisfactory enhancement to his abilities.

For this reason, after completing the tests on the home computer, he planned to construct a supercomputer within the experimental ground that would be unprecedentedly compressed in volume, relying on his energy-absorbing ability. Thus, the previous exchange came to be.

The entire experimental ground was under the coverage of Bai Mo's Primal Matter network, and the supercomputer's existence was naturally no exception. All heat generated by its operation would be absorbed the instant it appeared.

Originally, each core processor was a square wafer about three centimeters by three centimeters in size. But at his special request, all cooling equipment had been removed, leaving only a chip the size of a fingernail.

Under the control of Bai Mo's psionic power, these chips were densely installed onto their corresponding interfaces according to his design. He was like a terrifyingly precise machine tool, assembling this supercomputer of his own design bit by bit.

"It's a shame they don't have machine tools capable of assembly at this density level, because it's simply impossible for anyone to design core chips to such a density. If it weren't running under the Primal Matter network, the heat generated five seconds after startup would burn out all the chips."

Five million fingernail-sized chips were all crammed by Bai Mo into an operating environment of less than three cubic meters.

According to his theoretical estimation, each chip had a volume of one centimeter by one centimeter by zero point one centimeter, which is one-tenth of a cubic centimeter. One cubic meter is equal to one million cubic centimeters.

Theoretically, a space of just one cubic meter would have been perfectly sufficient to house these five million chips, but as a precaution, his final design still expanded to nearly three cubic meters.

"This monster, only a few cubic meters in size, surprisingly consumes as much energy as my ability amplification network at the base."

As for the supercomputer's memory and other components, Bai Mo simply copied the designs from existing data without any modifications. Thus, the final assembled computer still filled a room nearly fifty square meters in size.

And for this project and the further development of the Primal Matter network system around the base, Bai Mo even applied for a medium-sized nuclear power plant to provide a dedicated power supply for the entire experimental ground.

"Who knows how many years it will take until a small chip can achieve an almost omnipotent effect, just like in the novels?" Holding onto this thought, he powered on the assembled supercomputer, preparing to officially begin his experiments.

To ensure that a supercomputing-level amount of information interaction could be achieved, Bai Mo stepped into the conduction chamber, which he had initially designed by mimicking Sheldon's Spirit Hub.

"Five, four, three, two, one, activate!" After the countdown, the surge of electricity gave Bai Mo a fleeting illusion: he seemed to have regained the terrifying cognitive abilities he possessed during his breakthroughs. He could instantly complete vast amounts of complex mathematical and physical inferential calculations.

However, once he calmed his mind and gradually grew accustomed to the thrill of hyper-speed thinking, he realized the gap was still quite significant. The supercomputer's actual auxiliary effect was not heaven-defying.

This was because there was a fundamental difference between computer-assisted thinking and the sensation experienced during his breakthroughs. The former merely reduced the time required for most numerical computations; it couldn't proactively pose questions for thought like his actual thoughts could.

The number of problems he could process simultaneously hadn't actually increased; it only reduced the processing time for certain problems. For many pioneering cognitive tasks, the effect was unsatisfactory.

His terrifying cognitive abilities during breakthroughs, on the other hand, were like having endless thoughts, manifesting as something akin to omniscience. However, that sensation was rare and hard to come by.