Chapter 373: Chapter 372: The Dream of Cybernetic Utopia
The National Laboratory, in addition to the core "Void Particle" Research Institute, includes many purely Muggle scientific research institutes, such as the Institute of Computational Technology, Institute of Mathematics, Institute of Photoelectricity, Institute of Molecular Biology, Institute of Neuroscience, etc.
Some research requires extremely precise measurements, which the presence of magic might disrupt, preventing precise control of variables. Therefore, not all research institutes are integrated into the Science City system.
These Muggle scientific institutes and the Void Particle Research Institute are arranged in a fan shape around tens of thousands of hectares of land in Science City, with the "National Supercomputing Center" at their center.
This consists of a complex of six hexagonal towers, the tallest of which reaches 242 meters, with 46 meters of underground space beneath them. The complex as a whole has a rugged but grand futuristic style, which very much suits Murphy's aesthetic.
The central supercomputer - "Pioneer" - is located within this complex.
Pioneer is actually a collective of six supercomputers connected by optical cables for signal transmission and synchronous computation. It utilizes nearly 70,000 CPUs and more than 300,000 GPUs, totaling close to 70 million processing cores. Half of Sukhbaatar's Umbrella chip factory's output last year was supplied to this supercomputer.
These chips are Umbrella's latest 7nm process chips, a very advanced manufacturing process close to the chip level of Murphy's original world around 2020.
Achieving such a level of chip technology in 1995 is partly due to Murphy mining advanced process technologies from his memory through "Total Recall."
On the other hand, it is also thanks to the continuous exploration of the Shrinking and Enlarging Spells.
With the stable magic output from magic stones and enchantment technology, many spells have been standardized in factory production, independent of wizards.
The accuracy of Shrinking and Enlarging Spells has been reduced to one in a hundred thousand. When a standard wafer, originally about 200mm, is enlarged tenfold to 2m, the dimensional error is only 20 micrometers. After processing with a 1-micrometer technology and then restoring it, the processing precision error does not exceed 0.01 nanometers, fully supporting nanometer-level processing technology.
If it weren't for the quantum tunneling effect at the 7nm level, which cannot simply be overcome by enlarging and shrinking dimensions, Umbrella could now produce chips with a process below 1nm using this method.
Even so, after several optimizations, today's 7nm process chips are very powerful. Pioneer's total computing power has reached the exaFLOPS level, even surpassing the most advanced supercomputers of Murphy's time before crossing over.
However, Pioneer's energy consumption is extremely terrifying, with a power consumption of an astonishing 600,000 kilowatts when fully operational, equivalent to the electricity consumption of an entire county in England. Although the server room uses advanced water cooling technology to cool down, it can only allow Pioneer to operate at full power for two days.
Therefore, under normal circumstances, the six supercomputers take turns bearing computational tasks to alleviate cooling pressure.
"Pioneer's computing power has greatly exceeded the current needs of the National Laboratory. With the Unlocking Spell solution, the lab's folks are living like in heaven, casually applying for sufficient computing resources for any project, and sometimes even the military uses Pioneer to decrypt encrypted signals from the Beautiful Country."
Maintenance engineer Anton Saharov explained to Murphy on the way, "If you need to control the magic supply, you just need a very small algorithm, negligible compared to Pioneer's computing power."
"The algorithm is simple. You just need to install a terminal in each laboratory and factory that needs magic, collect their magic production and changes in real-time, and you can estimate the magic level required by each factory or laboratory. Then, by summarizing the data from all factories and laboratories, you can adjust the distribution of magic according to the plan. As long as the information you get is accurate enough, Pioneer can ensure that magic is distributed where it is needed to the greatest extent."
Murphy nodded, "Control theory? Collect, process, control, feedback..."
"Exactly, do you understand control theory?"
"A little," Murphy said, "And this system sounds somewhat familiar."
Anton brightened, "I'm a student of Academician Groshkov. This algorithm, actually, it's our algorithm, can effectively solve your problem. The magic allocation problem has not many nodes, at most tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of parameters. Compared to the OGAS system, it's not difficult. And with Pioneer, we can now even complete the OGAS system."
"OGAS, the national automation system?"
"Yes, yes!" Anton became excited, "With Pioneer's computing power, the largest bottleneck of the national automation system no longer exists! If the applications related to void particle technology can be implemented, we might even hope to build a true Cybernetic Utopia!"
Cybernetic Utopia.
It's a highly romantic and visionary prophecy.
In the 1960s, before the internet had even emerged, the Soviet Union, perceived as rigid and doctrinaire, had already proposed a plan managed by a big data network to oversee the country's economic operation and had even conducted over a decade of preliminary research on it.
This is what Anton referred to, the OGAS, the national automation system plan led by Groshkov.
At the time, the planned economy faced challenges, and manpower was insufficient to coordinate national production. Thus, Groshkov proposed an automated economic system plan using computers and control theory principles to gather all national production data and issue production orders in real-time based on needs.
The initial plan included a central supercomputer, regional computing nodes, and enterprise terminals in a typical tree network. Later, due to insufficient computing power, Groshkov also planned to use a decentralized blockchain-like network system, even featuring digital currency payments, which was extremely advanced in all aspects.
However, the computing power and network foundation of the time were fundamentally inadequate to support such a massive plan. Additionally, the system encroached upon many departments' interests and faced opposition from many sides, ultimately leading to its abandonment.
Yet, under Groshkov's leadership, there was a very energetic research team that even dreamed of a highly cybernetic future era. It was an age where humans and robots lived together without wealth disparity, with tremendous development in productivity, freeing everyone from laborious work to pursue their passions.
They called this future cybernetic communist utopia "Cybernetic Utopia."
They even designed emblems, constitutions, and holidays for Cybernetic Utopia, genuinely hoping that the power of technology could lead the Soviet Union and humanity towards a utopian society.
In Murphy's view, Groshkov and his OGAS plan were indeed too ahead of their time in the original world, to the point of being impractical.
In an era without the internet or personal computers, starting such a project from scratch that could only exist in the era of big data and the internet was too idealistic.
However, times have changed, and the world now is completely different from the original one.
What would happen if such a plan were initiated now?
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