Supercomputers have wide-reaching applications—weather forecasting, aerospace, geophysics, astronomy, economics, genome assembly, biomedicine, new materials research, smart cities, cloud computing, and big data.
They are also foundational to big science, major engineering projects, and information technology.
In short, supercomputers are strategic, high-end tools—national heavyweights—representing a country's technological prowess and global influence. The race to master them defines the frontlines of scientific competition.
And now, Chen Mo was standing at the cutting edge: a superconducting supercomputer—his most ambitious technological endeavor yet.
This machine used superconducting chips, not yet released to the public. Its circuit boards were entirely built from superconducting materials. It was, without exaggeration, an ultra-luxury build. Fortunately, Chen Mo had sourced the complete technical blueprint from the Science and Technology Library, eliminating any bottlenecks.
The original blueprint wasn't for a superconducting system—it featured a complex cooling mechanism. But since superconductors generated almost no heat, the entire heat dissipation module had become redundant. Chen Mo had Mo Nu strip it from the design.
Now, the system was housed in an optimized cabinet layout.
The current build consisted of ten computing cabinets and two network cabinets. Each cabinet, slightly larger than a double-door refrigerator, housed four super nodes. Each node contained thirty-two computing modules, and every module held four arithmetic node boards. Each board was equipped with two superconducting processors.
That meant each cabinet held 1,024 processors. Altogether, over 12,000 ultra-high-performance superconducting chips powered this system.
Despite having fewer cabinets than China's largest existing supercomputer, this one was far more powerful. It was still a prototype—more cabinets could be added later—but even now, its theoretical performance could rival the combined output of the world's top five supercomputers.
Billions of calculations per second. A monster of processing power.
Thanks to superconducting tech, its power consumption was also incredibly low—almost negligible for someone like Chen Mo.
In the basement of Building No. 1, assembly was already nearing completion. Robots, specially developed by Chen Mo for this purpose, worked tirelessly under Mo Nu's AI coordination. Running 24/7, they'd rapidly advanced the project.
Chen Mo stood nearby, silently observing the final stages. Almost every part of this supercomputer utilized synthetic room-temperature superconducting material. It was the culmination of countless hours of labor.
Satisfied, Chen Mo turned to leave the underground lab.
He didn't need to personally assist with assembly anymore. All instructions had already been given to Mo Nu, who directed the robots with unmatched precision. Chen Mo's time was better spent elsewhere.
Just as he stepped into the corridor, Mo Nu's voice echoed in his ear.
"Brother Mo, Mr. Li Chengzhi has arrived—with a woman. They're in the reception room."
"A woman?" Chen Mo blinked. "How long ago?"
"Only about five minutes."
"Alright. Ask Xiao Yu to bring them to my office. And show me who the woman is."
He was intrigued. Why would Li Chengzhi suddenly bring a woman to visit him? Was it related to the bio-enhancement agent?
"Her name is Wu Bing, Huaxia national, height—"
But Chen Mo had already stopped listening. His eyes widened in surprise.
Wu Bing?
He remembered that name clearly. At a business networking event in the capital, Academician Wu Hequan had introduced her to him—his niece. A woman with impressive credentials, now appearing at his company alongside Li Chengzhi?
She must've requested to meet the developer. That meant Li Chengzhi had agreed—and even brought her to the Marching Ant Company.
She would immediately understand what that meant: the developer of the agent was someone from Marching Ant. And that realization alone was probably enough to leave her speechless.
After all, from AI, to robots, to seismographs, and now to bio-enhancement drugs—just how many groundbreaking technologies had this one company produced?
Even the nation's top research institutes combined couldn't match their pace.
—
"Mr. Li, Ms. Wu, please follow me."
Xiao Yu entered the reception room and politely led the two out.
"Are we going to meet the developer now?" Wu Bing asked.
"That's right," Li Chengzhi replied.
"Please wait here. The boss just came out of the lab—he'll be here shortly," Xiao Yu said as she led them into Chen Mo's office.
Not long after, the door opened—and Chen Mo walked in.
Wu Bing looked up—and froze.
She recognized him immediately. The man in front of her was the same person she had once been introduced to on a blind date. Back then, he had seemed aloof and cold, busy mingling with socialites. She had dismissed him as just another rich heir.
She hadn't thought much of him since.
But now…
"It's you?" she said, surprised.
"It's me," Chen Mo replied with a smile. "Long time no see, Ms. Wu."
"You're Chen Mo? The boss of the Marching Ant Company?"
Only now did Wu Bing connect the dots. She'd returned from abroad and buried herself in work, barely following domestic tech news. Though she'd heard of the Marching Ant Company, she hadn't seen the face of its founder.
Until now.
Li Chengzhi watched silently, surprised that Wu Bing hadn't known Chen Mo's identity. Given their past encounter, he had assumed she would've recognized him instantly.
Chen Mo gestured for them to sit. "So, what brings you here today?"
"Regarding the pharmaceutical research," Li Chengzhi answered, taking the lead. "Wu Bing is one of the project leads. She wanted to meet the developer in person. That would be you."
"You?" Wu Bing stared in disbelief.
She had assumed Chen Mo was just the inventor of the seismograph—surely a physics expert, maybe an engineer. But now he was developing biological agents?
"I really am the developer," Chen Mo said, nodding.
"Chen Mo… the silence factor…" Wu Bing murmured. "I should've guessed. The name came from the element I discovered, didn't it?"
She stared at him, trying to see through the calm, confident man in front of her. He was completely different from the impression she had before.
Back then, she had thought he was some arrogant heir trying to show off. She'd walked away from that blind date thinking she dodged a bullet.
Now? She wasn't so sure.
"Is there a problem?" Chen Mo asked, noticing her staring.
"No… just curious." Wu Bing shook off her thoughts. "How did you discover the silence factor? If it's inconvenient, you don't have to answer."
Chen Mo smiled and shrugged. "Occasional luck."
"I see." Wu Bing didn't push further. "We've already completed animal testing—mice and non-primate monkeys. So far, no side effects have been observed. Normally, a drug like this would go through many failed versions before reaching this stage. I assume you've done extensive human testing already?"
Chen Mo nodded. "To a limited extent. I conducted experiments on mice and rabbits before discovering the silence factor. But because of the sensitivity and potential impact, I couldn't disclose any human testing data. That's why I'm collaborating with your team—to verify and advance it properly."
Wu Bing accepted that explanation without suspicion. "We recently tested on monkeys. If nothing unexpected appears in the observation phase, we'll be able to move into clinical human trials. Mr. Chen, we welcome you to participate in that stage."
Chen Mo smiled. "Of course."
She spoke plainly—no posturing, no secrecy. As a professional scientist, she knew exactly what had to happen next. If the drug passed primate trials, human trials were inevitable.
And Chen Mo, as its creator, would be an integral part of that journey.