If it wasn't Christophe Gavois himself standing there, and given the well-known animosity between the two companies, many reporters would have assumed Motorola was a shill hired by Jiangnan Group.
However, seeing Christophe Gavois's own expression—a mix of bewilderment, confusion, a touch of dejection, and even a hint of fear—the crowd knew there was no issue; this was the genuine test result.
Of course, one could insist that Jiangnan Group had bribed Motorola or somehow tricked them.
But a moment's thought would reveal that this was entirely unnecessary. After all, the Tianzhou terminal was bound to be released to the entire market, at which point the chip's performance would be impossible to conceal.
Once the truth was exposed, it would lead to a massive public outcry.
Apple and Google did something similar, and their accumulated reputation and credibility began to crumble. While they managed to recover some ground through various measures later on, they could never return to their previous heights. Such losses could not be recouped with any amount of money.
Since Jiangnan Group had witnessed the precedents set by Apple and Google, they were unlikely to make the same mistake.
Not to mention, with Google and Apple as potential cautionary tales, Jiangnan would appear even more foolish if they repeated the same error. Furthermore, Jiangnan's publicity campaign this time was so intense, even bringing out Cold Zhiwen and Motorola as trump cards.
It was obvious to anyone that at this product launch, everything would quickly spread worldwide. Global media would scrutinize Jiangnan Group's Tianzhou terminal shipments and conduct various reviews immediately. If Jiangnan Group dared to play dirty, they would be throwing away all the reputation they had painstakingly built—a move even Old Ba wouldn't make!
Therefore, the greater the stir Jiangnan Group created, the more genuine the chip should be. Especially since its performance surpassed all chips currently on the market, rendering it unusable even for OEM branding like Hanxing previously attempted.
But if this were true, how terrifying would Jiangnan Group's chip technology have to be?
For ordinary reporters, "terrifying" was probably the only adjective to describe Jiangnan Group's Zi-xiao chip. But for professionals, it was beyond mere terror; it was a divine miracle bestowed by God, or perhaps Satan escaping from hell.
Everyone knew the level of China's chip technology. In 2000, it was conservatively estimated to be at least 20 years behind. Yet, in less than seven years, it had somehow taken a lead of at least five years globally?
In just seven years, they had closed a 25-year gap?
Moreover, chip research and development were unlike other things. It wasn't something a genius could achieve instantly with a flash of inspiration. The entire lithography process involved hundreds of different industries and tens of thousands of advanced technologies.
Unless a genius emerged simultaneously in all these hundreds of industries and had simultaneous flashes of inspiration, such rapid advancement would be impossible.
Well, even if there were so many geniuses, it would be one thing if the chips were developed by a large state-run institution in China. After all, China had its unparalleled state-led system, making it more acceptable.
But the problem was that these chips were developed by Jiangnan Group, a private enterprise. According to Fortune magazine's assessment, the company's annual sales did not exceed 20 billion US dollars, and it had only just entered the top 200 of the Fortune Global 500. Could such an enterprise really afford to invest massive amounts of capital to produce such chips?
Thus, the professionals present felt their hands and feet grow cold; their worldviews and common sense were shattered, and they desperately needed divine intervention.
This included Christophe Gavois, who stood beside Huang He.
"Mr. Huang, this is truly astonishing. It's the greatest miracle I've ever witnessed in my life!" Christophe Gavois had to bite the bullet and praise Huang He, then, using this smile as cover, he asked, "I'm also very curious about how Jiangnan Group developed such a powerful chip. Could you perhaps briefly introduce it to us?"
Christophe Gavois was asking this question with great audacity, as even a brief introduction to technology that instantly surpassed the world by five years could potentially lead to leaks. Therefore, under normal circumstances, a person with normal emotional intelligence would never ask such an unanswerable question.
But there was no other way. If Christophe didn't ask this question himself and get an answer, he probably wouldn't be able to sleep soundly for several years to come.
But would Huang He answer?
"Ahem! Since Mr. Christophe Gavois has sincerely asked, how can I refuse? I will briefly introduce our Zi-xiao Generation 1 chip to everyone!" Boss Huang announced, and everyone present immediately perked up their ears, completely forgetting about Cold Zhiwen and everything else.
This was the truly significant big news.
"As everyone knows, the quality of a chip depends on its architecture, encoding, and most crucially, the lithography machine," Huang He said. "These three elements are the key to a chip. If Jiangnan Group wanted to catch up through conventional means, it would have to make breakthroughs in all three areas. This would be too difficult and almost impossible for Jiangnan Group."
"In fact, we haven't made much of a breakthrough in these areas. Jiangnan Group's research progress in traditional chips still remains at a medium level worldwide. Unless we are given another 20 years, it will be difficult to catch up with everyone in traditional chips!" Huang He said sincerely.
These words left the audience both clear-headed and confused.
They were clear-headed because they knew that what Huang He said was extremely accurate, and they themselves believed it. Or rather, they felt that even with another 30 or 40 years, Jiangnan Group still couldn't catch up to their chips. After all, everyone was progressing; just because you could catch up didn't mean others would stop running forward. So, they were clearly aware that Boss Huang's words were correct.
But the problem was that the Zi-xiao Generation 1 was right in front of them, and Jiangnan Group already possessed such extraordinary technology. If Jiangnan Group admitted to never having made breakthroughs in traditional chips, then there seemed to be only one conclusion: Jiangnan Group had found an alternative path, a shortcut, which led to the creation of this incredibly powerful chip.
But this made them even more confused. The development of chips had been stalled for over 10 years. During this decade, chip companies worldwide had been trying in every possible way to overcome the bottleneck created by lithography machines.
It was unknown how many companies had explored various unorthodox methods, attempting to find shortcuts to break through the bottleneck, but none had ever succeeded, which also proved that finding shortcuts was entirely impossible.
But now, it seemed that shortcuts did exist, but the world had not found them, and Jiangnan Group had.
This left everyone utterly perplexed. Where exactly was this nerve-wracking shortcut?
So, everyone's gaze once again fixed on Boss Huang's mouth. After taking a sip of mineral water, Boss Huang finally spoke again, "Since breakthroughs could not be achieved through traditional technology, we have been constantly searching for another path, a smooth road without any obstacles."
"Therefore, our team began to retrace our steps, returning along the entire path of chip development, continuously searching for all possible routes. However, these routes were progressively blocked until we returned to the very origin of all computer chips, which is the binary language of computers!"
"Does everyone remember the 100-million-dollar proposal solicitation activity that Jiangnan Group once held? We announced that Jiangnan Group had discovered a special material that possessed a natural chip-like structure, but it was extremely difficult to use in traditional computer architectures. We hoped to solicit chip architecture solutions from around the world that could be used with this material."
"Later, we also fortunately found the answer. Professor Zuo Sicheng from China proposed an open-ended five-digit computer coding scheme, believing that the natural architecture of this new material was highly compatible with the architecture of five-digit chips, and could be used to manufacture five-digit computer chips."
"Thus, we were very honored to invite Professor Zuo Sicheng to serve as the director of our chip research and development center and initiate the research and development of five-digit computer chips. Today, we have finally presented the world's first finished five-digit computer chip, our Zi-xiao Generation 1 computer chip!" Boss Huang openly revealed the secret of Zi-xiao.
It wasn't that Boss Huang hadn't considered keeping it a secret, but the Zi-xiao Generation 1 was impossible to keep secret, nor did it need to be.
It was impossible to keep secret because, with the right equipment, a portion of the chip's internal code could be read, and from this code, the truth of the five-digit architecture could be deduced.
Moreover, Jiangnan Group's earlier activity was open to the world, and many people still remembered it. Even now, hundreds of related submissions were received every month. In the future, by cross-referencing this information with the details revealed within the activity, it would be understood that Jiangnan Group had indeed developed the five-digit computer chip.
Therefore, this secret was impossible to keep. Instead of playing dumb, it was better to openly reveal it to gain the favor of relevant parties worldwide.
Besides, the core of the five-digit computer chip wasn't its architecture or its encoding, but rather the material of this naturally five-digit computer chip. This was the absolute secret that Jiangnan Group had to protect at all costs.