Chapter 1001 Promoting hardware development with software advantages
Because the facts were too clear, the little hiccup during the results soon subsided.
It’s just that the aftertaste of this episode will reverberate for a long time...
The next day is the official opening of the conference.
Since the number of participants for this conference far exceeded everyone’s expectations, the double-layer conference hall that was booked from the beginning could not fully accommodate it.
?So much so that some "less important" people need to be moved to other rooms in the same building and then watch the meeting through a closed-circuit television system -
Be present, but not quite there.
Later, after the Beijing Foreign Liaison Office joined the planning work, it even offered to help coordinate a gymnasium as the main venue.
?However, due to the strong protests from Zhu Yadan and other security comrades, this plan still came to nothing.
As the initiator, main sponsor and special guest of the entire event, Chang Haonan needs to sit in the first three separate rows with more than 20 other important people.
Or strictly speaking, the middle of the first row.
As an academic conference, you cannot set up a three-step, one-post, five-step and one-post peripheral inspection.
So the more people there are in the central venue, the greater the pressure for them.
At present, these hundreds of numbers are still within control.
??If there are really thousands or even thousands of people at the same venue, then you will have to apply for additional measures from the above...
In short, the entire plan was maintained as it was in the end.
?However, this also brought an unexpected benefit.
It means that the distance between people is physically shortened...
“Professor Jameson, good morning!”
?Chang Haonan found Anthony Jameson among the crowd with little effort.
The latter was wearing a peaked cap with the brim lowered deliberately. He was not sitting in his seat, but was standing against the wall.
It seems that he doesn’t want to be noticed too early.
??But with Chang Haonan’s specially raised voice, the eyes of everyone around him were still attracted...
“Uh…Professor Chang, good morning.”
??Jameson saw this and knew he couldn''t hide anymore, so he had to step forward and shook hands with Chang Haonan.
?Compared with his high-spirited appearance a few days ago, his face now looks a little haggard, and even his hair seems to be getting grayer...
“Is your body recovering well?”
?Chang Haonan’s expression of concern showed no sign of hypocrisy, and his tone was also full of sincerity—
It was specially rehearsed last night.
?If this scene is seen by an uninformed person, one would sigh with emotion like "the inheritance of two eras".
But Jameson’s inner pain is only known to him...
“It’s okay…it’s okay…”
??Jameson''s body doesn''t really have much to recover from.
But the mental trauma is hard to say.
“The opening ceremony is about to begin, let’s go to the special guest seats.”
?Chang Haonan enthusiastically dragged Jameson towards the center of the venue.
As he walked, he said:
"I specially asked the conference team to arrange a seat in the middle of the first row for you..."
…”
In fact, after Hertz learned that the final result was going to collapse, he immediately bought a ticket and flew back to the United States to prepare for the funeral arrangements...
Well…the aftermath.
Even Jameson himself briefly thought of running away from the meeting due to illness.
?This is also why he chose not to participate in the event last night after claiming to be ill.
?However, after a night of fighting between heaven and man, I finally gave up this idea.
It’s too low.
The participants are all top practitioners, and they all live in concentrated places.
One spreads it to ten, and ten spreads it to a hundred.
By the end of the meeting at the latest, everyone will know exactly what happened.
In this case, don’t call it illness.
Even if you are really sick and unable to attend, others will see it as a complete evasion of responsibility.
From now on, I no longer need to hang out in academic circles.
On the contrary, if we face the reality, this matter is nothing more than a research flaw.
At best, it’s just a marketing failure, which is very embarrassing.
But who among those engaged in research has not lost face?
As for commercializing imperfect technology…
?That was a wrong decision made by COMSOL, and it had nothing to do with Jameson himself.
?It’s amazing that he returned the funds given by the other party...
?However, psychological construction belongs to psychological construction.
When you are actually sitting in the meeting hall, it is a completely different matter.
??Jameson can feel something strange in the eyes of anyone next to him.
??And any two people discussing in a low voice together will make him guess whether they are making up a discussion about themselves...
In short, I was literally on pins and needles.
So much so that when the opening ceremony finally got to the point where the competition results were announced, Jameson even felt a little relaxed...
Anyway, extending one''s head is the same as retracting one''s head.
?Then why not make this knife come faster...
…
??As the athletes’ march played, the curtain in front of the conference hall began to reveal the detailed information of the winning teams one by one according to their ranking.
According to general practice, the top three will receive trophies, certificates and medals, while the fourth to eighth will only receive one certificate.
Considering that everyone is a decent person, we did not release the results and rankings of all the teams on site like last night.
?Of course, it’s just not available on site.
Similar to the situation in the preliminary round, all competition results can be seen on the website, including the engineering documents submitted by each participating team.
??For a small and small circle like numerical computing, the speed at which information is disseminated through the Internet is not even as fast as word of mouth...
??Although only a dozen special guests witnessed the release of results and the subsequent spot check of the results last night.
But in just one night, this matter was no longer a secret...
?Of course, there are always people who are not very well informed. “Speaking of which, Stanford University, which ranked first in the preliminary round, didn’t even make it into the top eight in the finals?”
A participant dressed as a student asked in a low voice to his companion next to him.
"you do not know?"
The latter showed a somewhat surprised expression:
“Not only did it not make the top 8, Stanford had no results at all in the end…”
"ah?"
The questioner looked shocked:
“How…how could this happen?”
? ?Stanford has always been at the top of the national rankings in the field of numerical computing. Coupled with the dazzling preliminary results, many people regard it as the favorite for the top three.
“Then I’m not sure…but numerical calculations require luck and experience, and anything can happen…”
The person being asked was obviously not a well-rounded person and did not know the whole story.
Fortunately, at this time, another person next to me also intervened:
"I heard when I was having dinner this morning that not only Stanford, but also all the groups that used COMSOL to do calculations failed to achieve results in this final... It seems that the two-phase flow calculation will trigger a certain BUG in their software, causing the calculation to fail at all. No results…”
"Who are you…"
“Oh, I’m just a little person, you probably haven’t heard of it…”
"oh…"
The other two people didn’t seem to take it seriously.
As a result, the other party changed the subject:
“But the big boss of our laboratory is Suhas Patankar…”
"oh?"
With such a relationship, the credibility of the statement just now is suddenly different.
"Two-phase flow is a very important part of CFD calculations. If there are serious bugs in this aspect, then the actual stability of COMSOL... I''m afraid it''s not very optimistic..."
“But the preliminary round…”
“The questions in the preliminary round were simple, and they were lucky enough to pick the part they were best at, but in the final the problem was exposed…”
…”
Similar conversations are taking place in multiple places at the same time inside and outside the venue.
? Even the awards ceremony going on on the stage seemed a bit bleak in comparison—
It’s just an award, not for yourself.
What''s more important than eating melon?
Furthermore, after an unknown number of rounds of transmission, the content of the message has become obviously out of shape.
In fact, the calculation vulnerability of COMSOL is only likely to be triggered under certain circumstances with high calculation weight.
Otherwise, Chang Haonan wouldn''t have to go to great lengths to set up such a game, and even "customized" a question for them.
But just one night later, the version everyone heard has become "COMSOL cannot do two-phase flow calculations."
This is something that even Chang Haonan, the initiator, did not expect...
No matter what.
At least in the foreseeable future, COMSOL has completely lost its qualifications to be on the table...
?Most people didn’t even notice when the award ceremony ended.
?It wasn’t until Chang Haonan began to announce Torch Group’s new plan for the next five years that everyone’s attention was drawn back to the stage.
After COMSOL was actually eliminated, considering that ANSYS did not intend to challenge the Torch Group in a large field, but chose to focus on the chemical application, then for a long time in the future, The entire numerical calculation will return to the state of one company between 1997 and 2000.
For users, this may not be a good thing.
Therefore, everyone is also paying attention to what actions the Torch Group will make later.
“First of all, TORCMultiphysics will launch a new version 2.0, and convert the past 1.0 professional version into an educational version, permanently providing unlimited free trials to student groups around the world.”
As soon as Chang Haonan came up, he threw out a king bomb.
Of course there was an educational version of TORCH Multiphysics in the past, but it was based on the public beta version of that year. The functions were very imperfect and the interface UI was basically at the level of 1998, and the user experience was extremely poor.
? It is precisely this problem that allows COMSOL to retain a considerable part of the market among research institutions and universities.
Now that the 1.0 professional version has been converted into an educational version, it is equivalent to directly blocking the way for latecomers to learn COMSOL.
?Of course, the educational version is literally for educational purposes only.
If you want to use software to publish research results, you still have to buy or rent a genuine version.
On the other hand, this also means that the improvements in version 2.0 must be obvious enough.
Otherwise, users who have spent money to use version 1.0 for several years may not agree.
And this is exactly what Chang Haonan is going to say next:
“The upgrade of version 2.0 focuses on the introduction of a new conservation level set method for interfaces with drastic changes in topology, including multi-phase interface simulation and topology optimization problems, as well as the introduction of a new conservation level set method for increasingly refined aerodynamic design requirements. A new, more accurate turbulence model that can more stably describe the movement of fluid microclusters under high flow rates..."
“I will elaborate on these two specific technical issues in my report later...”
…”
The release of version TORCH Multiphysics 2.0 was something that was announced long before the conference.
At that time, COMSOL Multiphysics version 2.5 was in the limelight, and everyone generally believed that this would be a frontal expansion caused by a comet hitting the earth.
Unexpectedly, it ended up being a unilateral sweep of the battlefield by the Torch Group.
Didn’t you see that someone specifically mentioned the upgrade for the two-phase flow problem...
It''s completely a whipping corpse.
On the stage, Chang Haonan’s speech was still not over.
"In the past few years, we have also received a lot of feedback from users, and the issues focus on the compatibility of 3D models and meshing. To this end, Torch Group has reached an agreement with Dassault Systèmes and Kompas. Jointly promote seamless connectivity between the fields of CAD modeling and numerical computing..."
“In addition, three years ago, Torch Group teamed up with Sugon Group to launch the Sugon 1000T supercomputer and server cluster that are more suitable for TORCH Multiphysics software at the hardware level, and achieved a pretty good response.”
“However, since the computing power of Sugon Computer itself was relatively average at that time, the advantage of this combination mainly lies in cost-effectiveness rather than performance.”
"But with the development of the performance of Sugon series supercomputer, we will also continue this business model of hardware adaptation software. We plan to launch the specially optimized Sugon 3000T within this year. The computing efficiency will be one-third higher than that of Sugon 3000, and The Dawn Edition of TORCH Multiphysics comes with richer functions than the professional version..."
…”
When his speech ended, the entire audience burst into thunderous applause.
As the final winner of this round of competition, Chang Haonan did not mention anything that worried everyone the most, such as price increases or new payment models.
And almost entirely discusses the further development of numerical simulation technology.
Many users have already taken out their notebooks and written down the name Shuguang Group, preparing to investigate the specific situation when they return.
As for the representatives of Shuguang Group who were sitting at the special sponsor’s seat, and the representatives of the Ministry of Science and Technology who were sitting at the special guest’s seat, they couldn’t hold back their smiles—
On the surface, this is just a collaboration between two companies.
But in fact, as the revenue of supercomputing and server business continues to increase, Sugon Group can continue to feed back to almost the entire upstream after solving its own development problems.
Especially the semiconductor manufacturing industry, which has been almost nipped in the bud since the 1980s.
Although we are still in the process of purchasing foreign equipment and raw materials for simple OEM, in any case, we have rebuilt the entire chain from R&D to commercialization.
This is almost a breakthrough from 0 to 1!
(End of this chapter)