Chapter 434: Confidential Achievements

And with China’s academic paper output having climbed to number one in the world over the past few years, they could afford to play this game of using their massive volume to hurt others with little blowback.

The only ones to suffer would be the scholars who cited the erroneous papers.

…

Work inside the base proceeded in an orderly fashion.

Li Xiangyang emerged from the secure conference room.

He saw Dr. Fang Shaolin from the Dairy Cow Breeding Office and greeted him with a smile, “Hello, Dr. Fang.”

“Hello, Dr. Li.” Fang Shaolin nodded, then hurried toward his office’s dedicated analysis room.

He entered the server room.

The air inside was significantly warmer.

He passed through a series of security checkpoints before being officially allowed inside.

Another colleague saw him walk in and stood up, looking relieved. “Old Fang, you’re here! I’m gonna step out for a smoke.”

“Mm.”

Fang Shaolin opened his dedicated computer and entered his password. A few software icons were on the screen. He clicked open the Nuwa System.

A page popped up on the screen.

He began entering some code, pulling up the relevant page for dairy cow breeding. Next, he accessed the dairy cow breeding gene database and, finally, input the data regarding the breeding pairs.

This pairing data came from the recent pairings at several domestic dairy cow breeding centers. Through this method, they would obtain predictive data on the second-generation cows. Once these calves were born, they could compare the results to determine the system’s accuracy rate.

The process was the same for other cross-breeding programs.

As long as the Nuwa System’s accuracy rate could exceed about 20%, its application in genetic research would provide a massive boost.

In fact, improving the Nuwa System’s accuracy depended on the depth of the data analysis and the research into various genetic targets.

For example, with crops that were already well-researched domestically, like rice, wheat, and corn, the initial accuracy rate was around 20-30% even without entering data from Jiang Miao’s Appraisal Panel.

However, for livestock like dairy cows, white-feathered broilers, and market hogs, the accuracy was estimated to be only around 10%. This was due to a lack of accumulated domestic research, forcing them to rely solely on data from academic papers published at home and abroad.

Unless Jiang Miao himself stepped in to help, the research institutions would have to rely on their own efforts to slowly debug the system and expand the genetic database.

Jiang Miao clearly had no intention of helping. “Ostensibly,” he had never researched these fields. Providing the framework for the tool was already more than generous.

The deal for Hailufeng Company to lend out the Nuwa System’s model framework was this: Hailufeng would get unconditional access to these genetic databases, and in return, the government would cover all the base’s operational expenses.

With government support, the base was given a dedicated communications line that could connect to a Tianhe-2-class supercomputer.

Without Jiang Miao’s help, relying only on the researchers to make gradual improvements, it was estimated that they could increase the accuracy of the simulated breeding for some species to a limit of 30% by around the year 2030.

Don’t be fooled into thinking a 30% accuracy rate is low. In reality, it’s extremely high.

This 30% accuracy meant that 30% of the traits expressed by the genes would be accurately predicted, which could save more than half the time required for breeding.

A process that traditionally took over a decade to produce a single new variety would be shortened to just four to six years. If they were lucky, they might even develop a high-value variety in as little as two to three years.

Although it couldn’t compare to a cheat code like Jiang Miao, it was still incredibly fast.

After all, Jiang Miao and Lin Shuya were only two people, whereas the country had tens of thousands of other researchers constantly grinding away at new varieties. Sooner or later, a few of them were bound to get lucky, like a blind squirrel finding a nut.

Even if only one in a thousand researchers managed to create a decent new variety, it would still represent a huge leap forward.

You have to remember, many breeders could go their entire careers without developing a single variety suitable for widespread use.

Now, with the Nuwa System, they could drastically reduce trial-and-error costs, shorten breeding times, and even preview some of the traits from simulated combinations. The impact was comparable to the advent of gene-editing technology itself.

In fact, gene-editing technology also required the Nuwa System. Gene editing involves altering an organism’s genetic sequence, a process fraught with uncertainty. The Nuwa System could simulate the edits, allowing them to filter out approaches with low success rates or severe genetic conflicts, leaving only the most promising options.

Although the Nuwa System’s applications had currently only been verified in some microorganisms, several academicians who had encountered the technology had already jointly submitted a report to the higher-ups, demanding it be kept strictly confidential.

This was the full story behind the establishment of the Monan Sub-center.

If Western powers learned of this technology, they would undoubtedly use every means at their disposal to steal it.

The domestic scientific community was also incredibly complex. If the system were used openly, Western powers would surely get wind of it within months.

For now, the official cover story for anyone applying to use the Nuwa System was that they were “using a supercomputer for analysis.”

Furthermore, only pre-approved research institutions could apply, and even they weren’t told the full story. Everything was compartmentalized.

Even if someone at one of these institutions were bribed, all they would learn is that a higher-level organization possessed a piece of gene analysis software, and they would only know about its application to a single species.

Besides, similar software already existed both at home and abroad, such as the breeding software used by foreign dairy industries.

Through this “information cocoon,” any foreign powers that gathered intelligence would just assume that China had simply developed a few more specialized breeding programs and wouldn’t pay it too much mind.

By the time breakthroughs in breeding began sprouting like mushrooms after a spring rain, it wouldn’t matter anymore. All they needed was to maintain secrecy for the first few years and establish a significant lead. At that point, Western powers would have no way to retaliate with any mutually destructive gambits.