Tech Giants: Starting from Bankrupt Companies

90: Chapter 90 A Spark Ignites a Prairie Fire: The Academy of Star SciencesLi Weimin: The First Returning Light (Turn of August 15th/16th)

San Francisco International Airport, late night.

Academician Li Weimin only brought a light carry-on suitcase. Inside, besides a few changes of clothes, it was filled with paper notebooks densely packed with formulas and notes. He hadn’t notified any relatives, friends, or students in the US; it looked like an ordinary academic trip. In the first-class lounge, he declined the champagne offered by the airline, asking only for a glass of plain water while quietly reading a latest paper on machine learning-assisted sequential optimization.

Over ten hours later, the flight landed at Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport. When Li Weimin stepped off the jet bridge, Su Chen was already waiting at the VIP passage with a few core personnel, including Zhang Wei.

There was no grand welcoming ceremony. Su Chen took a step forward and extended his hand: ”Academician Li, it’s been a long journey. I am Su Chen.”

Li Weimin shook his hand with great strength, his gaze sweeping over Su Chen’s face like a scalpel. He then nodded, his first sentence cutting straight to the point: ”My good-for-nothing student, Paul, is currently in charge of sales and technical support for Synopsys across the entire Asia-Pacific region. Late last night, he called me, his voice trembling, begging me not to board the plane. He said this was ’academic suicide’ and would ruin my lifelong reputation and my connections in the international academic circle.”

The old man paused, a cold arc pulling at the corner of his mouth: ”I asked him, Paul, if your algorithms and your software aren’t used to let engineers worldwide create better products, but are instead used to build a cage to stifle another civilization’s attempt to catch up, then what meaning is there in this ’academia’ or this ’reputation’? If science truly has national borders,” he looked at Su Chen, and then at the young, eager faces behind Su Chen, ”then I, Li Weimin, choose the side of China today.”

He didn’t go to a hotel, requesting instead to go directly to the Spark chip Design Center. In the data center, he saw dozens of engineers struggling with the design migration of the ’flint no. 2’ revised chip on the domestic Empyrean EDA software. The warnings and stutters popping up on the screens made the old Academician’s brow furrow tighter and tighter.

He watched for a while, then walked straight to an idle workstation. He skillfully opened Empyrean’s logic synthesis tool and quickly browsed the code structure and algorithm modules. Ten minutes later, he closed the interface and shook his head at the accompanying Zhang Wei and Su Chen. His voice wasn’t loud, yet it instantly silenced the noisy data center:

”This set of things... the logic and framework are correct; they’ve grasped the key points. But the core algorithms are at least ten years behind. They’re still using modified versions of 1990s optimization theories. When facing physical effects at 28nm and below, the efficiency is too low and the convergence is poor.”

He turned around, his gaze sweeping over all the nervous engineers present before finally landing on Su Chen, uttering a world-shaking statement:

”Give me an independent computer room with sufficient computing power, and give me three months. I will rewrite it.”

André Dupont: Defender of Light (August 16th)

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, transit area.

André Dupont’s journey was more convoluted. He first flew to Dubai, where two officials from the French Embassy in the UAE ’coincidentally’ appeared in the VIP lounge where he was waiting for his flight.

”Academician Dupont,” one official said politely but with an unquestionable tone, ”the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture are very concerned about your trip. You know, the current atmosphere is a bit... delicate. Some academic colleagues at home, as well as several former colleagues from ASML, hope you can reconsider. For your health, as well as your reputation back home...”

Dupont was flipping through a pamphlet about Renaissance-era Italian optical instruments. Hearing this, he gently closed the book, took off his gold-rimmed glasses, and slowly wiped them with a velvet cloth. His movements were elegant and slow, as if performing some kind of ritual.

”Philippe,” he called one of the officials by name in French; they had been alumni at the École Normale Supérieure, ”I am sixty-five years old this year. I worked at ASML from the time it was just a small lab under Philips until it became the absolute emperor of the lithography field—a full thirty years.”

He put his glasses back on, the gaze behind the lenses clear and firm: ”All the wisdom, passion, and the best years of my life have been dedicated to ’light’—how to harness light, shape light, and let light carve the crystals of human civilization at the nanoscale. Now they tell me that the ’light’ I’ve studied my whole life, the technology I’m proud of, cannot be used to help another group of equally smart, equally hardworking people pursue progress? Because of geopolitics? Because of so-called ’technical security’?”

From his carry-on leather folder, he took out a fine copy of a document bearing the seal of the French Academy of Sciences—his Academician certificate. Under the stunned gaze of the two officials, he gripped both ends of the paper with his hands.

”If the title of Academician means I must tacitly allow ’light’ to be locked in a cage and become a scepter of privilege,” Dupont’s voice was calm yet contained a storm, ”then this honor...”

*Riiip—*

A clear tearing sound echoed in the quiet VIP lounge. He gently placed the copy, torn in half, on the coffee table in front of him.

”...is better off discarded.”

He stood up, picked up his old leather suitcase containing his personal optical design manuscripts, and gave a slight nod to the dumbfounded officials: ”My flight is boarding. Goodbye, gentlemen.”

That evening, Dupont arrived in Shenzhen. In the car heading to the secret park on the Dapeng Peninsula, he looked at the rapidly passing, vibrant modern cityscape outside the window. He said to Su Chen, who had come to meet him: ”Mr. Su, do not treat me as a lithography savior coming to rescue you. I am here to cooperate. I’ve brought some ideas—design concepts for more compact, lower-cost EUV light sources and mirror sets that were rejected by the ASML board. Perhaps on a brand-new path without historical baggage, we can move faster.”

Three Heroes Meet: A Coincidence in Singapore (August 17th)

Singapore Changi Airport, first-class cabin of a flight to Shenzhen.

The meeting of Robert Chen, Zhang Mingyuan, and James Wilson seemed like a coincidence, but it actually implied a subtle arrangement by the system. They checked in at almost the same time and had adjacent seats.

Before the plane even took off, the professional discussion among the three had already begun. No small talk—they dove straight into the deepest technical challenges.

Zhang Mingyuan drew a sketch of a transistor structure on paper: ”The path of FinFET has already been turned into a maze by the patent walls of Intel, TSMC, and Samsung. If we start from scratch, should we directly evaluate the next-generation structure? For example, GAA (Gate-All-Around), or consider revisiting FD-SOI (Fully Depleted Silicon-On-Insulator)?”

Robert Chen pushed up his glasses and leaned in toward the drawing: ”GAA’s requirements for channel material uniformity and interface control are hellish. However, if we use my improved ALD technology to deposit multi-layered stacked nanosheet channels and gate dielectrics, we can theoretically achieve atomic-level precision control. It might be worth a shot.”

James Wilson listened, his fingers unconsciously tapping on his knee as if typing on an invisible keyboard: ”In terms of architecture, we can completely redesign. If the underlying device structure changes, the upper-level instruction sets, microarchitecture, and memory hierarchy can all break free from the mindsets of ARM and x86. We can design a new architecture that natively supports dynamic switching between ultra-low power and high-performance modes, optimizing for future heterogeneous computing and AI loads at the hardware level.”

Zhang Mingyuan’s eyes lit up: ”Like designing a brand-new body and transmission system for a new engine?”

”Exactly!” Wilson snapped his fingers with a touch of British humor. ”And we can make this ’engine’ more willing to ’drink’ domestic ’gasoline’ (process).”

The long flight became a high-density technical seminar. When the plane landed in Shenzhen and the three walked out of the cabin door side-by-side, dozens of foreign media reporters who had already caught wind of the news swarmed forward, surrounding them with cameras and sharp questions.

”Dr. Chen! Does your departure from Applied Materials have anything to do with coming to work for Huawei Spark this time?”

”Academician Zhang! Aren’t you worried that this move will completely sever your ties with the American academic community?”

”Sir Wilson! Does this mean that a competitor supported by China will appear for the ARM architecture?”

The flashes were blinding and the questions aggressive. Zhang Mingyuan stopped. This veteran who had weathered decades of storms at Intel faced the cameras with a calm expression. He said only one sentence, his voice not loud but piercing through the noise:

”In the face of transistors and electrons, the color of a passport has no meaning. A scientist’s conscience is more important than the color of a passport.”

After speaking, the three ignored any further questions and quickly left under the escort of Spark security personnel.

Xingchen Academy of Sciences: Cradle of the Spark (Evening of August 17th)

That night, in a simple, temporarily arranged meeting room at an old site on the Dapeng Peninsula facing the South China Sea, surrounded by dense greenery and security facilities (formerly a classified communications research institute).

Su Chen, Lin Wan, Shen Nanpeng, and the five Academicians who had just arrived gathered together. There were no flowers on the table, only a freshly printed document still smelling of ink—”Articles of Association and Founder’s Agreement for the Establishment of the Xingchen Scientific Research Institute (referred to as Xingchen Academy of Sciences).”

As the sole founder and investor, Su Chen signed his name on the document. The nature of the institution was clear: a non-profit high-end frontier technology research institution 100% owned by Su Chen personally. It was legally completely independent of any listed entities like Spark Technology or Xingchen Heavy Industry.

”According to the articles,” Su Chen explained to the five Academicians, ”100% of the intellectual property of all R&D results from the Xingchen Academy of Sciences belongs to the Academy. The Academy will authorize Spark Technology and its affiliates for industrialization and commercial application by signing an ’Exclusive Technology Licensing Agreement.’ The licensing fee will be 5% of the future sales of related products. This fee will be entirely fed back into the Academy’s continuous R&D.”

He looked around at the five giants, his tone sincere and firm: ”Here, there is no pressure from quarterly financial reports of listed companies, no urgent demands from shareholders for short-term investment returns, and no quick-fix mentality caused by commercial competition. We have only one goal: to work with undivided attention to create a complete and advanced chip technology system that belongs to us Xingchen people and to China itself. All basic research, principle verification, and prototype development will be completed here. Only when the technology is mature enough will it be transferred to Spark’s industrial platform for engineering and mass production.”

”I propose,” Su Chen looked at Li Weimin, ”that Academician Li Weimin serve as the first Dean of the Xingchen Academy of Sciences and concurrently as the leader of the EDA software Task Force.”

Li Weimin did not decline. He simply nodded slightly, his gaze already cast toward the large blank whiteboard on the wall, as if it were already filled with formulas waiting to be conquered.