Data Center (4)
A dim evening.
An exclusive restaurant sat quietly on the outskirts of the city.
The president of Osung Electronics arrived and stepped inside. When he entered the private room, the man who had gotten there first rose to greet him.
"Ah, President of Osung Electronics! Good evening."
The politician offering the greeting was the mayor who had recently signed an MOU with JH.
The mayor stood first and offered his hand.
"Good evening to you as well, Mr. Mayor."
"That the president of Osung Electronics would come all this way… I hardly know what to do with myself."
The mayor dipped his head with a carefully polite smile.
"When is the next election?"
"About six months out."
"Not long, then."
The mayor nodded.
Privately, he thought how nice it would be if Osung threw its weight behind him right about now. As if reading that thought, the electronics president spoke up with easy generosity.
"Osung Electronics will give you our full support in this election, Mr. Mayor."
"Oh—thank you!"
"Hahaha."
"Hahaha."
They looked at each other and shared a laugh.
Before long, the electronics president eased into the real reason for the meeting.
"By the way… have you heard of JH?"
At the shift into business, the mayor's eyes narrowed by a fraction.
"I know them. We signed an MOU not long ago."
"Of course—JH. Already an MOU with the mayor. In my view, JH is moving far too fast."
"Too fast?"
"Yes. Their semiconductors, the way they work—how long has the company even existed, and they're already signing MOUs with you?"
"True enough, when you think about how recently JH was founded."
"Everything is better done in moderation, wouldn't you say?"
"Absolutely. We all live in the same society. Everyone doing things in moderation is the healthy way."
The mayor carefully played along.
"Which brings me to my point."
The electronics president lowered his voice.
"I hear JH is building a data center."
"Yes. I've heard that as well."
"Running something like that properly takes a great deal of power. And I understand they've arranged to take a substantial amount of electricity from a nuclear plant."
Only then did the mayor grasp why he was sitting there. Help with an election six months out—and the price was pressure on JH.
"Electricity should always keep a reserve, shouldn't it? Just because you've generated a hundred doesn't mean you should use all hundred."
The mayor nodded.
"Exactly. You think you'll need a hundred, and if it turns out you need a hundred and ten, the power fails. That sort of thing must never happen. Prevention ahead of time."
Once the mayor showed he understood, the president smiled.
"We'll put together a large-scale investment plan. Announcing it about two months before the election—how does that sound?"
"Perfect. And we'll take some photos together, of course?"
"Hahaha. Depends how things progress."
"Hahaha."
JH Research.
I sat in the CEO's office, watching the TV screen.
The former ducal castle—now the Castle of the Creator.
Illys and her people were climbing up from the castle basement, hauling out the duke's hidden reserves.
"Heave—!"
"Careful there!"
Knights and mages came up from below with heavy chests. The administrative official waiting for them went wide-eyed.
"Hiiik—! Are those all… mithril ingots?"
The knights stacked the bars neatly on the floor. The official spoke with careful caution.
"Handle them gently. They're expensive."
A young clerk muttered under his breath. The growing pile of mithril ingots before them looked like a mountain.
"Whoa… that's insane…"
Silver light flashed off the metal.
A knight laughed.
"Of course a ducal house was never going to be poor."
Illys smiled.
"This land was always a wide plain. In ordinary times, you couldn't stay poor even if you wanted to."
"Fair point. That's how they piled up this much wealth."
"But what good is wealth? Three years of drought and no food, and it's worthless."
"Which is why they came after us."
This had always been good farming country—rich land, unlike the mountainous Rodriguez territory.
Illys's gaze drifted over the mithril ingots, then lifted toward me.
"My Lord. With this much mithril, we could coat a considerable amount of LPU or HBM. Which should we use it on?"
"Isn't it a waste to put that mithril on semiconductors?"
Even on Earth, mithril was a dream metal—and from their reaction, it was precious in the Nano World as well. If a duke had hidden it like this, it was roughly on the level of gold or silver by our standards.
Illys shook her head.
"No. What good is wealth without food? You feed us and protect us from our enemies, my Lord. If we can offer mithril we never even knew we had, it is our honor."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. And if you hadn't slain the hellhound, we never would have gotten it up here at all."
Well. If they were offering, I would take it gratefully. Mithril-coated semiconductors were tempting enough on their own.
On this side they were just scraps of food and plastic blocks; on theirs, they became food towers and castle walls. Not a bad trade.
"All right. I'd be grateful if you used the mithril on the semiconductors."
"We're the grateful ones. Then specifically—where should we apply it?"
"Semiconductor" was too broad a category. There was the LPU, and there was HBM.
Explaining in words alone felt inferior to simply showing her once.
"Illys. I just sent a sponsorship."
What I had sent was an LPU module.
"My Lord—I'll step outside and take it out."
Illys left the castle. Her speed was such that her feet barely seemed to touch the ground, as if she were skimming the grass. In the old martial arts tales they called that leaf-stepping flight.
On a broad open lot, Illys summoned.
"Summon!"
Thud-thud-thud-thud.
What rose from the ground was an LPU module.
"Illys. Call that an LPU module."
One look was enough for her to recognize it.
"Ah! You've connected an LPU and HBM?"
Illys had become a semiconductor expert in her own right. No—anyone who could design an LPU wasn't merely an expert. She was a super-expert.
I spoke while watching the LPU module on the TV screen.
"The LPU handles computation. It's like the brain."
"Right."
"And the HBM is the chalkboard—writing the results and erasing them, constantly recording data over and over."
"Yes."
"The question of where to use the mithril is the same as asking which side is slower."
"Ah! I see."
"Between the computing side and the chalkboard side, the one that currently takes longer is the chalkboard."
Illys nodded.
"In the past, computation took longer. One clever kid had to do all the math alone."
"But now you've sat down about a hundred thousand clever kids."
"Exactly. Computation became near-instant—but writing on the board became relatively slow. What's holding back the current speed is the HBM."
"So building the LPU is hard, but speed is decided by the HBM… that's what you mean."
"Exactly."
Illys's eyes lit up.
"So first we strengthen the HBM side."
"Yes. But… point to the space between the LPU and the HBM."
Illys raised a hand and indicated the center of the module.
"A little to the left."
"Here?"
"Yes. There. That's the interconnect where data travels. That matters too. If the signal telling it to compute is slow, the whole thing slows down."
"Understood. Base it on the HBM, but also reinforce the path connecting HBM and LPU."
"Right. Mithril is expensive, after all. We have to be careful with it."
Illys nodded.
"Got it. Then the mithril coating will focus on the HBM and the interconnect."
"In that case, I'll send more finished LPU modules."
"Yes!"
"I'll hang up for now—I need to go get the LPU modules."
"Understood."
One more step had been added to the LPU module process.
I had stonewalled Wilson Hwang of Mvidia every time he went on about mithril—and now my own data center would be running modules coated in the stuff.
"Time to go pick them up."
I wheeled myself out of the CEO's office.
Creak, creak, creak.
A few pushes on the handrims brought me to my private workshop.
CEO-Only Cleanroom
I opened the door into the prep room and approached the window overlooking the cleanroom.
On a table inside, LPU modules were stacked in neat rows.
I pointed at them with my finger.
"Sponsorship!"
"Sponsorship!"
"Sponsorship!"
As if I were firing a gun, every module my finger-gun hit crossed over into the Nano World.
Now it was a matter of waiting. What I had just sent would come back as LPU modules improved by mithril coating.
I left the cleanroom prep area.
Secretary Hwang was waiting for me at the door.
"Sir."
"Yes."
"Director Jang called."
"Did he?"
"Yes. The site has been selected, and it seems they're about to begin construction. He asked whether you might come down and take a look yourself."
The data center.
Director Jang, Dr. Han, and Team Leader Ran were running around on my behalf, since I couldn't easily do the footwork myself. Even so, the CEO ought to see it in person.
"All right. Please tell the head of security we're heading down to the data center."
"Yes. When would you like to leave?"
"As soon as it's ready."
"Understood."
A short while later, I got into a car driven by the head of security.
Radio chatter crackled through the vehicle at intervals.
Bzzzt.
"Forward clear."
Bzzzt.
"Rear flanks and outer perimeter also report clear."
The visible convoy—including my car—was three vehicles. That was only the surface, though. Beyond sight, more cars were guarding me as well.
Close protection was the head of security. Outer perimeter was Black, formerly of the NIS.
At a glance, one might wonder if this was excessive. But Cha Gangjin, the security chief currently driving, was a man who had taken a bullet for me. After the earlier attack, the detail might look heavy—but it was not inadequate.
"Director Cha."
"Yes."
"Are outside parties still trying to approach me these days?"
"They are, yes."
"Really?"
"Yes. After all, you're designing world-class semiconductors. Online approaches—viruses and the like—are more frequent than in ordinary cases."
"So what do we do?"
"Keep the firewalls airtight."
"And if they want to steal product?"
"You're already selling some of it, aren't you? If stock were as scarce as during the auctions, and only you knew the details, they'd try every angle to reach you. But when product is being sold as it is now, buying it with money is more rational for them than targeting you personally."
"Ah—so mass-producing makes me safer?"
"Not exactly that, but… if you're mass-producing, even a covert entry would go for the factory. There's little reason to target the CEO. With advanced products, the researchers under a chairman usually hold more of the technical knowledge than the chairman himself."
Fair enough. That was the ordinary way of thinking.
An aging conglomerate chairman versus a semiconductor researcher. Ownership might rest with the chairman—but who actually knew more about the chips? Obviously the researcher.
And in my case, if I counted the Nano World as part of my staff, the claim that the CEO knew less was also true.
Vrrrm.
Talking with the security chief, the car pressed on.
We arrived in front of a school.
Bang. Clang.
Construction was still in full swing.
From up ahead, Director Jang, Dr. Han, and Team Leader Ran approached in hard hats.
"You've arrived."
"Yes. How's it going?"
Director Jang walked me through the overall process.
"We're remodeling the grounds of a closed school. Once the remodel is done, the modules will come from headquarters."
Dr. Han explained the parallel connection of the LPU modules.
"For the modules, it's like shelving books in a library—we just stack the existing LPU modules and connect them. It won't take long."
"Is the parallel architecture difficult?"
"No. Getting the LPU modules is the hard part. Parallel connection is quick once you call in a few specialists."
An LPU module was not so different from a computer in its own right. Ordinary computers also had storage like hard drives or SSDs, power supplies, and I/O devices as separate pieces. But the core compute was all handled by the LPU module.
A data center was essentially a gigantic computer made by stacking and linking tens or hundreds of thousands of those LPU modules. And the method of dividing work so each module computed its share of the information was parallel computing.
"What about power?"
"The nuclear plant side has people out separately doing the step-up construction."
I turned my head and saw electrical work underway in that direction.
"If you'll come this way, I'll show you the cooling-water construction line."
We moved on.
What a data center needed was a vast number of LPU modules, electricity, and water. And all of it was progressing, piece by piece.
Securing LPU modules was the hard part. Next to a coastal power plant, electricity and water were not.
The work was moving steadily forward.
I smiled.
Everyone was working hard.
Smoothly.
Without a single interruption.