Humanity's Brain

JH Research.

The CEO's private cleanroom.

From the prep room, I looked through the glass at the LPU modules stacked on the cleanroom desk.

"Came back stronger, huh."

The LPU modules I'd left with the Nano World had returned.

The original plan had been simple: upgrade the critical sections of each LPU module with a mithril coating.

"Hmm. I only meant for them to do the mithril coating."

Mithril was practically a superconductor, so I'd expected the coating alone to make data transfer speeds absurdly fast. I'd asked for the work, and once I heard it was done, I started thinking about what the workers might want—which somehow led to the fan conversation.

The fan-making method I'd explained to Illys had been passed to Ralph, and that dwarf master craftsman had elevated the fan into an art form. The result: LPU modules with nano-fans built right in. Mithril coating included, of course.

"Somehow the HBM ended up with nano-fans on it too."

Through the glass, stacks of LPU modules rose in neat piles. Inside each of those modules, every layer of HBM held ten fans—the same fans originally built for the workers.

"And now those fans are cooling semiconductors, too."

A fan's whole purpose was to move heat. Whether it cooled a worker or a chip, it was optimized for the job.

I studied the LPU modules.

"How did it end up this extreme?"

I had never intended to push them into full high-end territory. An LPU designed by Illys. HBM assembled by the nano-people. That alone would have been monstrous. But once you layered on mithril and nested nano-fans, the product became almost too good. I had no idea how I was supposed to explain this to anyone else.

If someone asked, what was I even supposed to say?

"Yeah… I'll just tell them the details are proprietary."

Trade secret. Perfect phrase. One word of that and the person still asking looked like the weird one.

"Well. Better is better."

Stronger product performance meant more money, which was good for our employees. And for everyone outside the company: trade secret. With that neatly settled in my head, I returned to the CEO's office and called Manager Jang.

From that day on, for several days, LPU modules piled steadily into the data center—neat as books on library shelves. Fifty LPU modules fit into a single steel frame. Thirty frames filled one classroom. That meant fifteen hundred modules per classroom.

The school was bigger than I'd thought. At first I'd only pictured the classrooms, but the teachers' offices, science rooms, art rooms, even the broadcast studio—all of them filled with LPU modules. We left the auditorium empty for now. That space was reserved for larger equipment later.

Thirty thousand LPU modules went into this single build. And more would keep coming off the line.

At last, the work was done.

Classrooms packed tight with LPU modules. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The wide room that had once been the teachers' office had become the data center's control room. I sat at its center.

The power technician raised his voice.

"Bringing power online!"

"Three, two, one! Power on!"

With the technician's shout, the massive power switch slammed home.

Ziiiiing.

Lights came up along the walls one after another. And the LPU modules, racked like books in a library, began to wake.

"Zero-point-eight amps… one-point-two… one-point-four… entering the stable range."

"Voltage twelve-point-three volts—normal!"

"Temperature holding at twenty-two-point-eight degrees!"

"Current balance confirmed! Deviation is… whoa!"

Shock flashed across the face of the technician checking current balance.

"What is it?"

"Nothing. The current deviation is zero. It's perfect. I can't believe it's this perfect…"

Current flowing with absolute perfection. By that technician's common sense, current in copper wire always varied by position. Copper had resistance, after all—and the resistance for electrons moving through the copper's interior was wildly different from those skating along the wire's surface. A current deviation of zero shouldn't have been possible.

But then, why did Mvidia's Wilson Hwang want mithril so badly? Because mithril conducted electricity far better than copper or silver.

Wheeeeeee.

Machine noise cut through the air. Modules began trading signals, calculations spinning up.

"Test complete. All circuits normal!"

"Power supply stabilization one hundred percent. Power loss rate: zero percent!"

The staff smiled.

Once the data center stood complete, reporters flocked in. There was even one who had started commuting to the center every day, claiming this was a national event and that the completion story had to break first. Right now, at a glance, more than thirty reporters were gathered. Glancing over, I could tell they wanted a word from me.

I wheeled myself toward the press cluster.

"As you can see, the data center is complete, and trial operations confirm it is running normally."

Papapapak!

Camera flashes erupted. Damn, that was bright. People called this eye-blasting, right? I felt like some kind of celebrity.

"This is JH's LPU-module-based data center—the highest computing power currently existing on Earth."

Earth's greatest computing power. I'd handed them the headline myself.

Applause rippled through the crowd.

Clap, clap, clap.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Congratulations!"

I clapped along.

One reporter raised a hand.

"CEO! You just described this facility as having 'the highest computing power on Earth.' How high, exactly? How does it compare to Nvidia's or Amazo's data centers?"

A brief silence fell. Every gaze locked on me.

I lifted the microphone slowly and smiled.

"I don't know every company's data-processing capacity in detail. But Amazo and Micro's cloud data centers seem to trade the industry's number-one spot back and forth, don't they? Using facilities ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of that class as a baseline…"

Gulp. The reporters leaned in, ears pricked.

Ohsung Electronics, President's Office.

President Cho Seong-tae crumpled a paper newspaper in his fists. His face looked as crushed as the paper. The secretaries beside him bowed their heads deep.

"Tell the strategy chief to come in."

Moments later, a bespectacled strategy chief entered. The president flung the crumpled newspaper onto the desk.

"What is this?"

The president's voice dropped low.

"Why is it running fine? We arranged to give them only half the planned power. So why is there no disruption?"

The strategy chief made a small, pained sound.

"I am deeply sorry."

Even he had not expected JH's data center to operate this well.

The president spoke again.

"They're only getting half the electricity, and it's still running smoothly."

The lines on his forehead deepened. The hard part of a data center was, first, securing the GPU or LPU modules themselves—and second, securing the electricity. LPU modules JH produced in-house, so that was untouchable. Since Ohsung handled packaging, they could have botched the packaging work. But they couldn't. Packaging wasn't something only Ohsung could do. And money was on the line; what had to be done had to be done properly.

Still, the president couldn't understand it.

"Strategy chief. Doesn't this strike you as strange? We arranged for only half the original power supply, and yet it runs without a hitch. Does that make any sense? I simply cannot accept it."

Ordinary people might not know—but they knew exactly how this industry worked. Until yesterday, the single building that consumed the most electricity in the Republic of Korea had stood on the campus of Korea University. The Korea University AI Lab. A few professors had thrown together a small data center, and until yesterday it had been the hungriest building in the country. In other words, nothing ate power like a data center.

And yet this one was fine. The world's greatest data center, power cut in half—and fine.

"Why? Why is it fine?"

The strategy chief bit his lip once, then his eyes lit.

"Perhaps…"

As the strategy chief started to speak, the president leaned in.

"Yes. What?"

"I believe they concealed their performance."

The president's eyes widened.

"Concealed… their performance?"

"Yes."

The president raked both hands through his hair.

"A semiconductor company concealing performance?"

"Performance cannot simply leap overnight. The only explanation is that they hid a portion of their capability from the start."

The president sank back into his chair.

"Holding back three-tenths of their strength?"

"Yes. They may even have known our intentions."

"What?"

"If they anticipated our attack, holding back their real power would not be so strange."

The president drummed his fingers on the table.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Hmm… Then what do we do now? We cannot simply leave a competitor to run wild."

"I have a plan prepared."

"What is it?"

"Thermal management is critical for a data center, is it not?"

"It is."

"Even for JH, heat problems at a data center are inevitable. We have already obtained information that they are drawing in seawater for cooling."

"Oh? Continue."

"I do not know how JH achieves such low power consumption. But I do not believe a data center can escape thermal issues. They are using water cooling with seawater, correct?"

"They are."

"They draw seawater at roughly four degrees Celsius from three hundred meters down to cool the facility. After cooling, heated seawater necessarily has to be discharged."

"And so?"

The strategy chief smiled.

"What if we frame it as environmental pollution?"

Environmental pollution. Hang it on an ear and it becomes an earring; hang it on a nose and it becomes a nose ring. Environmental issues could be hung on almost anything.

The president tapped the desk with his fingers, thought a moment, then lifted one corner of his mouth. His eyes met the strategy chief's.

"Do it."

The data center.

I'd stayed here for several days just to make sure it was running smoothly.

"Being by the sea, the wind feels nice."

It felt like a resort. The flower beds held a statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin and a statue of a child reading a book. We'd had statues like that when I was a kid, and they were still here. When I was little, there was a ghost story that Admiral Yi's statue opened its eyes at midnight. People said the reading-child statue turned its pages, too. I'd actually believed it back then.

Then a low murmur rose in the distance.

"What is that?"

A crowd had gathered. Banners flapped. A megaphone's voice echoed.

"Environmental polluters, get out!"

"That's right! JH must protect residents' right to survive!"

"Hot-water discharge is killing the fish!"

Anger and exhaustion mixed on their faces. Sun-darkened skin. Placards in their hands. Caps on their heads. A man who looked like a fisherman shouted in a salt-roughened voice.

"If you ruin our sea, what are our kids supposed to eat?!"

The auntie beside him clutched a banner with wrinkled hands.

"You're killing the ocean for some electricity?!"

An old woman watched the crowd without a word. Her eyes held hard resolve.

"Protect ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the environment!"

"Residents' lives come first!"

Every time the megaphone blared, their chants thundered. Startled by the noise, Manager Jang and others came running out. Manager Jang began arguing back and forth with the local residents.

Being in a wheelchair, I wasn't about to roll straight into that kind of chaos. Instead I quietly texted Manager Jang.

There seemed to be some kind of misunderstanding.

A few residents stomped over to find me, still fuming.

"Hello. I'm the CEO of JH."

The word CEO seemed to startle them a little.

"From what I hear, you're asking us not to dump hot water back into the sea?"

"That's right. If you dump hot water into the ocean, the fish die, and the fishermen take a huge hit."

They were still huffing with anger.

"I see. But we don't discharge hot water."

"What do you mean? Everyone knows a data center has to dump hot water."

I smiled.

"Other companies' semiconductors run hot. So they circulate water to cool them. But ours are different. Ours have fans built inside, so they cool themselves. They're not hot, and they don't need water circulation."

"What?"

"Simply put: other people's semiconductors get hot. Ours don't. Go ahead—touch them."

I gladly let them handle the semiconductors. They were still in their cases, so contact wasn't a problem. The residents looked flustered at the invitation to touch something that wasn't hot.

I smiled brightly.

"Our kids don't get hot."