Data Center (2)
Splash.
A calm stretch of beach. The salty tang of the sea breeze brushed past on the wind.
A black SUV rolled to a stop beside the sand.
The door opened and a figure stepped out.
Sharp eyes behind sunglasses. A middle-aged woman who carried a subtle perfume. A tailored suit that followed soft curves, a gold belt cinched at the waist. A slim gold watch on her wrist. A thick-chain gold necklace gleamed at her throat. A massive jade ring caught the sunlight and flashed from her fingertip.
She lifted her head and looked at the real-estate sign.
It was Ran Zhao-ming, team lead of JH Research.
A look of quiet pity crossed her face.
“Haa… The CEO would love to be out here working with his own two hands. How hard it must be for him that he can’t.”
Ran Zhao-ming felt for the CEO in his wheelchair. What he wanted was treatment—for himself and for his mother. That treatment needed AI, and the AI needed a data center. In the end he simply wanted to heal himself and his family; of course he would want to feel the ground with his own feet. But the CEO was disabled. Ran Zhao-ming gave herself a little pep talk out of sympathy.
“I’ll just have to work twice as hard in his place.”
She headed for a real-estate office.
Ding-a-ling.
The agent inside looked up from his paperwork, offered the automatic greeting, and scanned the woman who stepped through the door.
“Welco…me.”
Gold necklace, oversized jade ring, leather clutch in hand. From the tips of her shoes to the ends of her hair.
The man thought to himself, Outfit, attitude, even the walk… a rich lady come to look at land.
Ran Zhao-ming took one slow circuit of the office, then stopped in front of the desk and asked briefly,
“Here, can I look at some land, hm?”
Not “is there” but “can I… hm.”
That single subtle cadence lit up the agent’s brain.
Chinese!
He bowed even deeper and rubbed his hands together.
“Aigoo~ Welcome, welcome! You’ve come from far away! What kind of land are you looking for? Beachside?”
Ran Zhao-ming gave a short nod.
“I looking for finished empty building near power plant. Size at least as big as a school, hm.”
A somewhat unusual request. And not a house—an entire building. The scent of a big deal filled the air.
“What will it be used for?”
“Data center. Think of it as place with lots and lots of computers, hm.”
“Oh, so not private use?”
“Yes. And need to draw electricity from power plant, and close to sea so we can pull in seawater, that would be good, hm.”
Corporate was even better. The man snatched up his car keys at once.
“Ah, yes! Plenty of places like that! I’ll show you exactly the right one!”
Numbers were already rolling behind his eyes.
Chinese rich lady + coastal land = jackpot!
Vroom.
The place the agent drove her to was an elementary school.
“Where is this?”
“How about a closed school?”
“Closed school?”
“Yes. The buildings are already finished, and the scale is large. Not far from the power plant, and the sea is close.”
Ran Zhao-ming walked the grounds of the abandoned school. The nameplate had been scraped clean; the flagpole creaked in the wind. She passed the brightly painted buildings and stopped in the middle of the playground. The ocean was visible in the distance.
“Thirty classrooms…”
Three buildings: main classroom wing, annex, and gymnasium. Thirty classrooms in total. The playground was still level, the drainage still sound. Weeds had pushed up here and there, but the structure itself was intact.
She spent a long time examining everything—not sightseeing, but calculating. Window frames, electrical conduits, road access, water intake. She even checked the diameter of the pipes in the underground boiler room.
“Thirty classrooms… enough for a mid-size data center easily…”
A small smile touched her lips.
“Not bad.”
That single phrase made the agent beam with excitement.
“Right? There’s nothing of this scale around here! And the sea is right there!”
Ran Zhao-ming did not answer. Instead she pulled out her smartphone and photographed the buildings.
“I’ll keep this one for now. Are there other properties, hm?”
“Of course! As many as you like.”
At the same hour.
Director’s office of the nuclear power plant on the East Sea coast.
Dr. Han Woo-seok, on a business trip from JH Research, was having coffee with the plant director.
“Senior. How have you been?”
“Haha. It’s been a while. Is the professor well?”
“Yes. Still full of fire.”
“I can imagine.”
Finding a Hankook University graduate in any expert circle was never difficult. Han Woo-seok held a doctorate from Hankook University’s semiconductor department. Through one connection or another he was acquainted with the nuclear plant’s director as well.
“So, any progress on the heat-exchange research?”
In nuclear engineering, coolant heat-exchange technology was essential. In semiconductors, how to manage heat was equally central. Because of that shared subject, Han’s advisor had once collaborated with the nuclear side, which was how Han himself had come to know the director.
“Heat is always difficult.”
“True. I’ve been at it thirty years and I still don’t fully understand it.”
“If even the director says that, where does that leave the rest of us?”
“Right. So what brings you today?”
Han set down his document bag. Inside was a proposal.
“Ah—I’d like to obtain electricity from the nuclear plant.”
“Electricity? How much?”
“Around ten megawatts.”
“Ten mega?”
The director’s eyes went wide with surprise. Ten MW was no ordinary figure. One megawatt was the equivalent of turning on tens of thousands of ordinary 220-watt household appliances all at once.
“What on earth do you need that much for?”
“We’re going to build a data center. I joined JH Research. We produce semiconductor modules ourselves, so with the modules in hand we figured we’d build our own data center while we’re at it.”
“Ohh… JH?”
The director’s eyes lit up.
“I’ve heard the name. Hot these days, isn’t it?”
“Hehe. Thank you.”
“Then of course we should. A data center is national infrastructure, isn’t it?”
“Yes. The possibility that it becomes national infrastructure… exists.”
“That’s the same thing.”
The director laughed heartily.
“Of course we’ll supply it. It’s for the country! I can’t decide alone, but no one will object. Supplying that much power is no problem on our end.”
“Thank you very much, Director.”
The director took a sip of coffee and said,
“JH, huh… The world changes fast. Semiconductors are the pillar of the nation now.”
Han smiled.
“In the end it all starts with electricity. Without electricity, what good are semiconductors? And electricity starts right here with nuclear power, doesn’t it?”
“Haha. Look at that—once you got a job, your flattery improved. All right, I’ll give you a tip.”
He pointed a finger upward.
“If you coordinate with the people higher up, things will move faster.”
“Higher up meaning…?”
“We’re a public corporation. Talk to the politicians and the work gets a little quicker and smoother.”
“Thank you.”
The next day.
The mayor’s office at city hall, which oversaw the nuclear plant.
Chief of Staff Jang Dae-shik of JH Research paid a personal visit.
“Welcome. You’re Chief Jang of JH, I take it?”
“Yes. A pleasure to meet you.”
The mayor seated across from him had the face of a seasoned merchant. An expert smile. Laugh lines were carved deep around the corners of his mouth from years of smiling.
“So JH is investing in our city?”
“Yes, Mr. Mayor. We intend to build a data center.”
“A data center… That sounds excellent. What scale are we talking?”
“One building. However, to receive power and cooling water we will definitely need the local government’s cooperation.”
“That much is no problem. But… how large is the investment?”
Jang offered a deep smile.
“We manufacture the necessary semiconductors ourselves. So the actual cash outlay is not large compared with outsiders… but.”
“But?”
“If we were not using those semiconductors and instead sold them on the open market.”
“If you sold them?”
“Hypothetically speaking… they would be worth at least tens of trillions of won.”
In that instant the mayor’s pupils dilated.
“Tens of trillions… rounding up, that’s a hundred trillion, isn’t it?”
“Well… you could look at it that way.”
“Then of course it’s good!”
The mayor immediately picked up the phone.
“Hey, it’s me. Make a banner. The slogan: ‘JH 100-Trillion-Won Investment! Data Center Construction!’”
Jang swallowed a laugh.
“A slogan that gives the citizens hope.”
“Of course. Since you’ve come all this way, let’s sign an MOU while we’re at it.”
“Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.”
While preparing the MOU documents the mayor seemed to remember something and lifted the receiver again.
“Hey, it’s me! While you’re at it, make a few more banners. ‘Korea’s Aaron Merks! AI is the Future!’ ‘Data centers are our bread and butter. To the moon, let’s go!’ Plenty of good ones. Come up with a few more on your own.”
Jang smiled as he watched the mayor shout “to the moon.”
“Great! All right, the MOU papers are ready. Let’s take a photo and be done.”
“Excellent.”
Click.
An MOU cooked up as fast as beans over lightning. Yet the corporation and the politician whose interests aligned both wore bright smiles.
CEO’s office, JH Research.
I was looking at my smartphone in the office.
Bzzzt.
Texts kept arriving on my phone.
Photos +150
Bzzzt.
Bzzzt.
Photos +3
“Everyone’s really hustling.”
I had asked them to run hard in my place, and they truly were running hard. Ordinarily the CEO should set the example and work the hardest… but, well. I didn’t have feet.
“I was working hard too, you know.”
I hadn’t exactly been idle. I raised my head and looked at one wall.
A 114-inch 8K television. The reason I had installed a TV this enormous in the CEO’s office was simple.
“I only just realized it syncs with the smartphone.”
The smartphone that connected to the Nano World was my number-one treasure. I had treated it like gold and jade, so carefully that I never even thought of plugging anything else into it. Then, on a whim, I tried the mirroring function. Mirroring sent the phone’s screen to the TV—a simple way to view the tiny display on a much larger canvas.
“I never expected it to work.”
I had been a smartphone repair technician. There was no phone feature I could possibly fail to know. But this was no ordinary smartphone; I had enshrined it like a sacred relic and refused to handle it carelessly. Of course a function that should work on any smartphone worked on this one too.
“And wired is better than wireless.”
Wireless mirroring still had slight stuttering at high resolution. In those cases a wired cable made the switch clean.
“All right—plug this cable in and the connection is complete.”
I had other people install the TV. Once the installation was finished I sent everyone out and completed the link myself.
Click.
The cable seated; the wired connection was live. Now it was time to place a call to the Nano World from the phone. I dialed Illys.
[Call connected]
A moment later Illys answered.
“Yes! My Lord!”
Illys’s face filled the entire 114-inch 8K screen. Every pixel seemed alive; her expression looked more real than reality itself.
“Illys. Just checking—you can’t see my face, right?”
“No. Unfortunately not. I would love to see you as well, my Lord.”
Thank goodness. I could see Illys, but she could not see me. If she could, she would have caught the completely slack-jawed look on my face.
I stared at Illys on the 8K display. Soft golden hair cascaded naturally under the light. When the tips brushed her forehead they reflected a gentle sheen; her skin itself seemed to hold a subtle luster.
Amazing. How did skin shine like that?
Wow… look at that.
Balanced brows beneath the forehead. Those brows alone were luxury goods. They say a master calligrapher can be recognized from a single stroke—one glance at the line of those brows and you knew they were masterpieces.
And then the eyes themselves: sometimes like a clear lake, sometimes like a deep sea. Blue, yet threaded with silver at the center. Even the tiny lights reflected inside them seemed part of her. For a moment I felt I might fall into them if I let my concentration slip. She hadn’t spoken a word, yet her eyes already seemed to be talking.
I suddenly regretted not buying a giant TV sooner.
“Ahem.”
I forced my gaze free of her eyes only for the elegant curve of her nose to catch it next. And below that, full lips that glittered minutely with every shift of the light. They looked soft and warm, yet carried a firm will. Her throat moved slightly—as if she were swallowing or about to speak. Even that tiny motion the 8K resolution refused to miss.
“My Lord?”
The home-theater speakers standing beside the TV filled the CEO’s office with her voice.
“Uh… uhh… uhhhh.”
It was truly fortunate my face was not being transmitted. Filling that entire 8K screen, an angel was smiling.
A screen that pulled you in all by itself.
Far away, my employees were running themselves ragged on business trips. To those hardworking staff I could now say with complete confidence:
I, too, was working with full concentration.