Scholar’s Advanced Technological System

After Lu Zhou left the underground laboratory, he went straight to the Institute of Computational Materials building and found Yang Xu, as well as his team, inside the battery testing laboratory.

When he arrived, Yang Xu had just finished a set of experiments and was recording the results of his experiment.

Lu Zhou didn’t interrupt Yang Xu’s team. He waited for them to finish and then called Yang Xu aside. He then gave him the sample box.

“Help me do a component analysis.”

“Okay.” Yang Xu didn’t ask any more questions. He looked at the thumb-sized box and said, “Is it urgent?”

Lu Zhou: “Not urgent, just give it to me within three days.”

“Okay then.” Yang Xu placed the sample into his lab coat and said, “Do you have any requirements?”

Lu Zhou said, “Infrared spectral characteristic peak detection, as well as transmission electron microscopy… These two for the time being.”

Yang Xu: “No problem, I can get it to you the day after tomorrow at the latest.”

“Okay, thank you.” Lu Zhou nodded and looked at the battery detector next to him. He then asked, “Oh yeah, what are you guys doing?”

Yang Xu said with a smile, “We’re trying to improve the cathode material of lithium-sulfur batteries. We replaced the pore agent and tried to adjust the pore size of the HCS-2 material. The limited data seems to indicate that the HCS-2 can be further improved. The rate at which the polysulfide compounds diffuse into the electrolyte in the negative electrode material can increase battery life… We’re still trying to verify this.”

Lu Zhou smiled and said, “Looks like a promising project… Oh yeah, let me ask you something, do you know anything about robots?”

Yang Xu looked at Lu Zhou with a strange look. He didn’t know why Lu Zhou was asking this.

“Robots? Why are you asking about this?”

Lu Zhou: “I need it for some experiments. I plan on buying a few to research. It’s fine if you don’t know about them, I’ll ask someone else.”

“Robots… I really don’t know much about robots.” Yang Xu rubbed his chin and said, “But I have a friend that is in this field.”

Lu Zhou: “From MIT?”

“Not from MIT. He’s a friend that I made during my undergraduate years. He also majored in materials, but then he transferred to automation. He followed his mentor and went onto the robotic field. I remember during our class reunion, he tried to sell me the robots that his factory was producing. He laughed and said that the Institute for Advanced Study isn’t some kind of factory and that we don’t need that kind of thing.”

Yang Xu smiled and added, “His factory is in Jinling. If you need to, I can introduce him to you?”

Lu Zhou: “Just give me a business card.”

Yang Xu: “Okay then, I think I have one in my office. I’ll go grab it.”

…

Yang Xu’s friend was called Zhao Zhongshu.

Even though it was very rude to make fun of other people’s names, Lu Zhou nearly laughed out loud when he saw this business card1.

However, even though the name was a bit silly, this person was also nutty.

According to Yang Xu, this guy was originally a materials major, but then after his undergrad, he had a career change. He jumped from the materials field and followed his supervisor to go into the robotics field.

Before the 2010s, the robotics field wasn’t particularly popular. His supervisor’s factory was mainly responsible for importing types of equipment and selling them to logistics and assembly plants in China.

Back then, he was in the so-called “real economy”. It didn’t make him rich, but it did not make him poor. He just cruised along in the factories and got his paycheck.

However, in 2015, there was a drastic change.

At that time, in order to catch up with the China 2025 manufacturing plan, one of the national strategies was to invest in the manufacturing industry. And the industrial robotic field was an important part of this. The robotics industry received hundreds of billions in subsidy funds. Just like the photovoltaic industry, money and state subsidies were swarming in.

At that time, he was still doing a postdoc, and he saw a money-making opportunity.

After some consideration, he gave up on his wish to stay in academics and started a company with some of his friends.

And the result went far beyond his expectations.

With his years of accumulated experience, within five years, he was able to grow his small company to a decent size.

Honestly, even Zhao Zhongshu was surprised by his own achievements.

After all, he only started the company with a few people…

Jinling suburbs.

Inside a bright and spacious factory.

Various types of robotic arms were displayed on both sides of the walkway. The large arms were almost three-people high. The small ones were about the same length as a human arm. There were also some other obscure equipment and a wide variety of machining tools, which were attached to the robotic arms.

Looking at the letters on the side of the machines, it didn’t look like these robots were produced in this factory. At the very least, half of them were imported.

As Factory Director Zhao led Lu Zhou inside the factory, Lu Zhou looked around the factory and asked, “What kinds of models do you guys sell here?”

Zhao Zhongshu smiled and said, “We sell a lot of models. There are small multi-joint robots, and vertical multi-joint robots, which were around 5kg. There are also large ones that have a capacity of 1.35 tonnes. There are some pieces of equipment that were imported in, like ABB and YuMi intelligent robots, as well as KUKA’s iiwa. However, these machines are not in stock, you’d have to order in advance.”

Lu Zhou: “Do you have any good recommendations?”

Zhao Zhongshu: “It depends on what you need the robot for.”

Lu Zhou: “To do experiments.”

“Experiments?” Zhao Zhongshu froze. He thought he had misheard, so he asked, “Using robots to do experiments?”

Lu Zhou: “Is it not possible?”

Zhao Zhongshu smiled and said, “It’s possible… But it depends on what kinds of experiments. If you’re working with precise instruments and delicate tasks, I’m afraid the accuracy will be a problem.”

Lu Zhou: “Can I take photos?”

Zhao Zhongshu said with a hearty smile, “Take them, it’s no big deal. I was still hoping that Professor Lu can help introduce us to some big clients.”

Honestly, he didn’t expect Lu Zhou to buy a lot of stuff. After all, no matter how nutty a robot was, they could only do the physical tasks that wouldn’t require a lot of brainpower. There was no way a robot could replace even a noob researcher.

However, the industry was often connected and linked with the academic world. This was why he was so eager to help Lu Zhou; he wanted Lu Zhou’s industry connections.

Lu Zhou took out his phone and took a few pictures of the factory. He then opened his phone and sent the photos to Xiao Ai.

He didn’t know a lot about robots. Instead of him choosing them himself, he’d rather let Xiao Ai choose.

After sending the pictures, he generously sent a line of text as well.

[Which one do you like?]

After a while, a text body popped up.

Xiao Ai: [This isn’t the body that I wanted. o(╥_╥)o]

Lu Zhou: “…”

You didn’t tell me what kind of body you wanted!

I didn’t expect this guy to be so picky.

Lu Zhou sighed and replied.

[This is all we have.]

Earth’s technology is primitive, my apologies.

Xiao Ai: [I don’t want to talk to you.jpg]

Lu Zhou: ? ? ?

Seeing how Lu Zhou was staring at his cellphone, Zhao Zhongshu asked, “If you can’t make up your mind, I can suggest some stuff.”

Lu Zhou’s mouth twitched as he continued to look at his phone screen.

“No need, give me a second.”

Even though Zhao Zhongshu was confused, he still nodded.

“Okay then.”

Footnotes:

Zhao Zhongshu sounds like planting a tree in Chinese