Chapter 695 The 700 Billion Project! Yu Chendong and Lei Yijun Fall Out: "Build Your Own CPU!

After a week-long business trip, Chen Yansen finally returned to Xucheng.

But the moment he stepped into the Delta Villa, before his butt even hit the sofa, Hu Ruihui from the Huake Science Association called.

“The higher-ups are planning to establish an integrated circuit industry investment fund. The goal is simple: to reduce reliance on foreign chips and enhance the competitiveness of the domestic chip industry through targeted financial subsidies. Next Wednesday, there will be an industry exchange meeting at the Yanjing Conference Center. Besides Tiangong Technology, Zhanxun and Hisilicon will also be there. In addition, companies from all stages of the process, including chip manufacturing, equipment and materials, and packaging and testing, will also participate.”

The Big Fund?

The two words floated through Chen Yansen’s mind.

The Big Fund was the nickname for the Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund.

It got this nickname because of its large funds, great influence, and immense strategic value.

Across three phases, it would invest 700 billion yuan, leveraging a semiconductor market worth trillions.

In his memory, the Big Fund wasn’t supposed to be established until September 2014.

But from Hu Ruihui’s tone, it was clear that the first phase of funding was already in place.

Summoning them to Yanjing for a meeting was, on one hand, to promote cooperation, and on the other, to listen to policy and get ready to ‘divvy up the money and resources.’

At this thought, an excited expression appeared on Chen Yansen’s face.

‘Who would turn down free money?’

‘This money should go to Tiangong Technology!’

Although there had been benefits like tax reductions, technology bonuses, and local subsidies before, they were at most one or five million—like mosquito legs, not satisfying at all.

Now, the higher-ups were allocating funds directly, starting with one or two billion at a time.

Chen Yansen wasn’t short on money, but he was short on the technology and resources from the upstream and downstream industry chain.

Although Qualcomm hadn’t turned on him yet, as the market share of Celestial Craft Chips continued to expand, who could guarantee that they wouldn’t use their industry advantage to force foundries to halt his production?

And Huaxin International, the most technologically advanced domestic manufacturer, couldn’t meet the production requirements for the Celestial Craft A100 at all.

Low yield, high cost, and a poor success rate!

‘I have to prepare for a rainy day!’

Chen Yansen had no desire to one day have someone’s hands around his throat.

He didn’t need to imagine how awful that would feel!

“Thank you for letting me know, Mr. Hu. I’ll definitely be there on time.”

Chen Yansen said, flopping onto the sofa and readily agreeing.

‘Only by following the general trend can one develop quickly and steadily.’

Hu Ruihui chuckled and teased, “If you don’t come, this exchange meeting would lose half its meaning.”

“Mr. Hu, you’re exaggerating. Tiangong Technology is just a newcomer to the industry; we can’t bear such high praise,” Chen Yansen replied modestly.

“But in terms of CPU and GPU architecture technology, Tiangong Technology has long surpassed Zhanxun and Hisilicon. Even Apple and Mountain Star have paid to purchase the instruction set patent for the Orange Z1. Frankly, it was the debut of the Orange Z1 and the Celestial Craft T100 Chip that accelerated the implementation of the Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund. And the launch of the Celestial Craft A100 was the final push that lit the fire. You, my friend, have made an indispensable contribution!”

Hu Ruihui praised him without reservation.

There wasn’t a drop of exaggeration in his words.

Tiangong Technology’s continuous breakthroughs of European and American patent barriers had given the higher-ups immense confidence.

Since they could take the lead in chip design, perhaps with additional industry investment and the mobilization of more funds and technology, they could further enhance the hard power of the integrated circuit industry.

If they could overcome a few key technological hurdles, it might give China’s semiconductor industry enough of a voice to complete the transformation from buyer to seller, and truly integrate into the global semiconductor industry system.

As for surpassing the competition, no one dared to even think about it.

Only industry insiders truly understood how complex the equipment and technology required for chip manufacturing were.

Even ASML wouldn’t dare to boast that it could independently manufacture a lithography machine.

That’s because it relies on light sources, specialty electronic gases, and photoresist technology from countries like Germany, the Lighthouse Country, Little Days, and Korea.

The same went for the Lighthouse Country; it also lacked the ability to master the technology for the entire industry chain.

Therefore, the higher-ups’ current thinking was: to reach the world’s top level in a specific area—such as front-end process equipment manufacturing, CMP polishing materials, or optical lenses—and become an indispensable part of the industry.

Chen Yansen was long accustomed to all sorts of compliments. Although Hu Ruihui was an important figure and his tone was extremely sincere, Chen Yansen didn’t take his words to heart.

The two chatted for a few more minutes before hanging up.

Chen Yansen tossed his phone aside and leaned back on the sofa, pondering.

‘What’s the best way to enter the chip manufacturing sector?’

After all, the higher the sales of the Yaocheng X2, the more Celestial Craft A100 Chips would be shipped, and the greater the threat to Qualcomm, MediaTek, and NVIDIA.

Never mind that Huang Renxun was currently engaging in cross-licensing patent technology and investing in his company. Once NVIDIA’s core interests were threatened, the man would still stab him in the back.

“First, I’ll go get some free money to spend from the higher-ups.”

A minute later, having sorted out his thoughts, Chen Yansen muttered quietly.

The next day, Liu Qiangdong announced Jingdong’s three-year strategic plan for its home appliance business on Weibo, putting forth the slogan, ‘Completely surpass the two retail titans and become number one in the industry.’

Huang Zheng was tempted to reply, ‘What am I, chopped liver?’

But on second thought, Liu Qiangdong hadn’t mentioned Pinbei by name. If he jumped in voluntarily, it would just make him look petty.

But that phrase ‘number one in the industry’ still rubbed Mr. Huang the wrong way.

He thought for a moment, then called over Zhang Yifeng and instructed him to pour some traffic resources into the home appliance category during the upcoming Singles’ Day mega-sale.

When the time came, he would slap down a battle report from the home appliance sale. He wanted to make Liu Qiangdong understand one thing: actions speak louder than words!

Sunning’s Zhang Jindong, however, didn’t humor Handsome Dong at all, publicly calling him out online: “I have over 1,000 physical stores. What are you going to fight me with? Fake discounts?”

“Any user who has placed an order on the Jingdong platform knows that Jingdong has fast delivery, good after-sales service, and low prices. Even if a product’s price is set incorrectly, as long as a user places an order, we will ship it normally.”

Liu Qiangdong was taking a subtle dig at Zhang Jindong.

This response awakened users’ long-suppressed memories. People who had bought a refrigerator from Sunning for 10 yuan last year were instantly enraged, and they flocked to Sunning’s official Weibo and Zhang Jindong’s social media account to leave comments:

“President Zhang, I don’t know if Jingdong is any good, but I know for sure that Sunning sucks!”

“You fraud! Send me my refrigerator, and I’ll help you curse out Liu Qiangdong.”

“Last time Jingdong had a bug, they shipped everything. And you? All you know how to do is play dead, right?”

The netizens’ tirade of abuse forced Zhang Jindong to turn off the comments.

Immediately after, Jingdong’s legal department submitted a lawsuit to the authorities in Jinling, accusing Sunning of price fraud and malicious competition.

Suing Sunning in Jinling—even a fool knew it was a losing battle.

But Liu Qiangdong didn’t care. He just wanted to cause some trouble for Zhang Jindong before the Singles’ Day mega-sale.

「Meanwhile.」

Ma Liyun quietly expanded the business scope of Taodian, moving from Jiangsu and Zhejiang into Sujiang, with plans to launch in Hu City.

Clearly, on the eve of Ah Li’s IPO, Lao Ma wanted to use this expansion of business boundaries to boost the confidence of North American investment firms.

Taodian’s steady advance from regional markets to core cities could both demonstrate Ah Li’s penetration in the local lifestyle services sector and send a positive signal to investors that its “business model is continuously breaking new ground.”

This was undoubtedly a shot in the arm for the upcoming IPO financing.

Lao Ma knew in his heart that although Ah Li’s e-commerce base was stable, to get a higher valuation at its IPO, he had to show the capitalists more possibilities.

To put it bluntly, you need a story, you need a hook.

And the offline consumption scenarios covered by Taodian happened to complement the e-commerce business, forming the prototype of an “online-offline integrated” ecosystem.

Of course, the potential problem was that if it provoked the dissatisfaction of Kuai Pao or Senlian Capital, it could also drag Ah Li into the mire of a price war.

Therefore, as Taodian expanded into surrounding markets, it acted very cautiously. Its marketing strategy for users was also conservative, offering only a single instant-discount coupon for new customers, for fear of triggering a third war in the food delivery and group buy industries.

It wasn’t that Ah Li was afraid of a fight; it was just the wrong time and place.

「At the same time.」

Yu Chendong posted an update on Weibo, cursing angrily, “The Huawei A199’s benchmark score isn’t even that high, so was it necessary to deliberately change the rules and weights? If you’re not happy, go develop your own CPU!”

The Huawei A199, also known as the Ascend G710, was Huawei’s newly released sub-flagship phone. It used a Hisilicon K3V2 quad-core processor, had specs on par with the Xiaomi 3, and was also priced at 1,999 yuan.

Its internal test benchmark score was 23,000, but now it was only 19,000.

The implication of Yu the Big Mouth’s words was that Lei Yijun had no integrity. Banking on his position as chairman of Jinshan Software, he was trying to use high benchmark scores to show off his own product’s performance advantage, while secretly nerfing the scores of his competitors’ products.

‘So shameless!’

And Antutu had long been a subsidiary of Jinshan Software. In Yu Chendong’s view, Xiaomi was most likely the one playing tricks.

‘It’s either Lei Yijun or Li Wanqiang!’

Yu Chendong’s accusation had dragged Antutu, Jinshan, and Xiaomi through the mud all at once.

Li Wanqiang immediately wanted to fire back, but he was stopped by Lei Yijun.

Ten minutes later, Antutu’s official account replied: “Version 5.0 adjusted the GPU weighting for better accuracy. The reason the Huawei A199’s benchmark score dropped is unrelated to the Antutu software; it is due to the performance issues of the Hisilicon K3V2 itself.”

Antutu’s stance was clear: don’t blame the third-party software for your own shortcomings.

This angered Yu Chendong so much that he cursed them out and announced that Huawei would create its own fair and impartial performance testing software.

“This guy went on a long-winded tirade just to promote his own testing tool? This… he’s even more shameless than Zhou Hongyi.”

Lei Yijun was so angry he laughed.

The feud between the two was thus cemented, and their usual business-related mutual flattery came to an end.

Afterward, Li Wanqiang said sarcastically, “If we’re talking about a self-developed chip on the level of the Hisilicon K3V2, then Xiaomi could make one too.”

It had to be said, after Xiaomi’s valuation broke 10 billion US Dollars, the confidence of everyone in the company had swelled.

Chen Yansen sat in the cabin of a Gulfstream 550, phone in hand, and finished reading about the online spat between the two companies.

It was only natural that Yu Chendong and Lei Yijun would have a falling out.

‘They both sell phones, how could they possibly get along peacefully?’

At two in the afternoon, the plane landed at Yanjing Airport.

He had planned to go back to his hotel first, but on the way, his phone rang—a call from the Central Bureau!