They agreed to meet at six in the evening.

Academician Ni Danan arrived at five forty, accompanied by one of his students.

He was almost sixty years old, carrying a briefcase, wearing a brown suit, with glasses perched on his nose. His hair was graying, and he looked very refined.

It is said that appearance reflects the heart.

Su Yehao found Academician Ni's demeanor very pleasing. Influenced by his preconceived notions, he immediately reached out his hand and said politely, "You must be Academician Ni. Hello, hello! My name is Su, Su Yehao."

"Hello. Young Master Su, your Mandarin is quite good. I'm sorry for being late. It's hard to get a taxi during rush hour, and the traffic was bad."

Academician Ni said with a smile on his face.

Looking around and seeing so many bodyguards, he initially thought Su Yehao was being ostentatious.

On second thought, it made sense. After all, he came from a wealthy family, and quite a few wealthy people had met with trouble in recent years. Naturally, he couldn't go out alone like ordinary people.

Su Yehao smiled and said, "Not at all, it's still early. I came over to see the restaurant that my partner, Chu Jun, took over, so I arrived early. I often do business in the mainland, so I had to practice my Mandarin."

After some pleasantries, he shook hands with Academician Ni's student.

Although he was called a student, he was about forty years old, with thinning hair, and his name was Zeng Guangpei.

Hearing this name, Su Yehao immediately remembered that Chu Jun had mentioned him. Zeng Guangpei was the one who contacted Chu Jun and acted as a bridge, which led to their meeting today.

Thinking that Zeng Guangpei worked at Liangxiang Group with Academician Ni, his abilities probably weren't too bad. Intent on bringing the research and development team under his control, Su Yehao was equally polite to him.

Chu Jun had just gone to greet other guests. As the host, he ran back and smiled, inviting them to be seated in a private room in the backyard.

The private room's floor was paved with old bricks, and landscape paintings hung on the walls, along with the flourishing calligraphy of the four characters "Hou Ji Bo Fa" (great accumulation leads to great achievement). It was quaint and elegant, with an old Golden Bullet Plum bonsai in the corner, and a view of rockeries and plum blossoms through the glass windows.

The environment wasn't particularly high-end, but it looked quite comfortable.

After some small talk.

Su Yehao took the initiative to get down to business, a smile on his face, asking, "I've heard that Mr. Ni isn't happy working at Liangxiang. I'm also planning to enter the personal computer manufacturing and sales market recently. In the initial stages, I'll have no choice but to focus on purchasing and assembly. However, I'm different from Liangxiang Group. I have a bigger appetite. The personal computer business is secondary. My main focus is on seizing the upstream and downstream markets."

"...The upstream and downstream markets, what exactly do you mean by that?" Academician Ni grasped the key point and hit the nail on the head.

"The upstream mainly involves chip manufacturing, followed by research and design. After all, what if I invest a huge amount of money in design, only to be suppressed and have no factory to produce for me? Wouldn't I be left twiddling my thumbs? With companies like Intel, they are capable of doing such things. When it comes to profits, they'll do whatever it takes. So, finding a way to secure lithography machines and contract manufacturing in the early stages is more important to me than the research itself."

Everyone wanted to do something substantial. Su Yehao didn't beat around the bush and continued to explain:

"As for the downstream, it's mainly about cultivating a sufficiently large internet user base. While promoting the development of information technology, my internet company, including instant messaging, portals, social platforms, office software, online games, and so on, can all come into play. The money earned can be reinvested in research and development. I'm not like some people with short-sighted vision. The upstream components of personal computers and the downstream internet ecosystem are both very profitable. Only the assembly and production links are a bit lacking, just small-scale operations."

Even Chu Jun thought this statement was arrogant.

Worried that Academician Ni, who had worked at Liangxiang for more than ten years, would be uncomfortable, Chu Jun chimed in, repeating the saying from that morning, "Hardware manufacturing profits are no more than 5% to 10%. By lowering prices, we can promote the development of domestic information technology." He used this as an opportunity to praise Su Yehao's foresight.

Thinking that the two sides disagreed on development concepts, Chu Jun couldn't help but add, gloating, "Once President Su's products are launched, Liangxiang Group will be the first to suffer, which can be considered a way to vent some anger."

Academician Ni chuckled and waved his hand, saying:

"Venting anger is irrelevant, but lowering the price of computers does help to achieve the popularization of personal computers. I've tried the broadband high-speed network that will be launched in China this year. The internet speed is exceptionally fast. What's currently lacking is computers. The price is too expensive for others to afford. I once advised them, but some people only focused on the stock price, fearing that lower profits would cause the stock price to fall, and they ignored me."

Although he said it didn't matter, he looked quite happy.

A refined person with a technical background couldn't hide things in his heart. Just like his conflicts with certain people, he could be frank and open about them. Right was right, and wrong was wrong. Even if it involved huge profits, he could disregard them in the face of major issues.

Su Yehao smiled and continued, "I think Mr. Ni understands better than I do just how difficult it is to forge one's own path. I've been considering it for the past two days. The first step is to produce and assemble computers, while also investing in companies that produce and research key technologies such as lithography machines, striving to achieve chip manufacturing as soon as possible."

"Recently, I've been helping my dad invest in Meidi Group, looking for reliable mobile phone production technology. My people told me that Qualcomm plans to sell its mobile phone research and development center because it intends to focus on communication technology and chips. The market won't allow it to monopolize everything. If I want everything, I will inevitably be jointly suppressed by my peers, so making trade-offs is very important."

"Assembly and contract manufacturing are only the first steps. It may not be until later that I can find another opportunity to develop chips, mainly mid-to-low-end microchips, similar to Qualcomm's goals. This thing occupies a relatively large market share, and it may not necessarily be behind the chips used in computers. In the future, various terminals will be the mainstream. Washing machines and televisions will use them, and mobile phones will also use them. It's difficult to become fat in one bite..."

Su Yehao had carefully considered these aspects in advance.

Academician Ni's thinking was a bit idealistic, focusing on research and development and not considering the commercial market. After listening, he only asked, "Then what about the operating system? Has Young Master Su thought about investing some money to compete with Microsoft?"

"...Developing an operating system is not difficult. The difficulty lies in how to build an ecosystem around it. Even if it is really made, the key is how many people will use it."

A chip and an operating system were the main points of contention between Academician Ni and the boss. Su Yehao had guessed beforehand that he might ask.

Smiling, Su Yehao shook his head and continued, "Competing with others on their own turf is a losing battle. Why not change the path? Technology is developing so fast. In a few years, maybe mobile phones will be able to carry a whole new operating system, and even refrigerators can connect to the internet. Besides working and playing games, who will still use computers? Also, I'm actually eyeing Apple, but I don't have that much money for now. It has a complete computer operating system, but unfortunately, it has spent twenty or thirty years and the ecosystem has not yet developed, let alone us..."

Academician Ni was a great talent.

Ordinary people might be standing on the first floor, while he might be standing on the fourth or fifth floor.

And Su Yehao's height was as high as ten or twenty floors, so that the conversation was a bit like boasting without drafting, quite unrealistic.

Originally, Academician Ni thought that it would be enough to secure some funding for chip research and development and operating system research and development projects. He didn't expect Su Yehao to be interested in chip manufacturing and microchips.

As for the operating system, it was more like drawing an unrealistic pie.

However, in the old gentleman's eyes, Su Yehao was still commendable, with more advantages than disadvantages.

After all, after searching for so long, no one dared to invest except for this twenty-year-old young man. Occasionally, he even encountered some fools who opened their mouths and asked if a few million could create a computer chip production line...