I'm back in 1990

Chapter 1065: Cost Price

Yang Rui, curious, secretly glanced at the people while wiping the glasses at the bar.

Countless business people have come to her coffee shop, but today's scene is the biggest ever. This has also changed her understanding of Tang Ruixuan. It seems that this female college student's family is not only rich, but also has a very good background.

After a long pause, Tong Hua said firmly, "Alright, I've finished reading it. You can sign it now."

Attorney Fang handed him a Montblanc pen: "Please sign your name in these three places, and also sign the initial of your name in the bottom right corner of each page."

Tong Hua took the pen, his hand trembling slightly. After taking a deep breath, he signed his name on the first page.

Not long after, he had signed all the documents.

The agreement was then placed in front of Tang Ruixuan, and she signed her name in the appropriate place.

After signing the last page, Attorney Fang collected all the agreements and then handed one copy to each of the two individuals.

At this moment, Vice President Chen led the applause: "Congratulations to you both. From this moment on, Jinling Mingzhi Technology Co., Ltd. has officially received its first angel round investment."

The others joined in the applause, and Yang Rui, seeing this, put down her cup and clapped a few times as well.

Tong Hua stood up and solemnly extended her hand to Tang Ruixuan: "Thank you, I won't let you down."

Tang Ruixuan smiled slightly and shook hands: "From now on, we're partners."

After signing the contract, Tong Hua realized just how much convenience and benefit finding the right partner would bring him.

The funds arrived in full the day after the signing, which Tong Hua hadn't expected. He had thought that even with an investment agreement, the funds would arrive in installments, but Tang Ruixuan trusted him so much that she gave him all of it at once.

What surprised him even more was the hardware problem.

In the second week of April, Tong Hua visited Yang Rui's coffee shop again. Yang Rui already recognized him and invited him to sit down.

Tong Hua arrived a little early; Tang Ruixuan hadn't arrived yet.

However, Tang Ruixuan arrived soon after, bringing a laptop and a notebook.

After sitting down, Tang Ruixuan placed the notebook on the table and then pushed the notepad in front of Tong Hua.

Tong Hua picked up the notebook, glanced at it, and froze.

This is a brand new, very detailed hardware configuration plan.

The top is densely packed with various models of GPUs, motherboards, memory, hard drives, and even rack layouts and cooling solutions.

Tang Ruixuan took a sip of coffee and then said, "I've looked at your list. Following that plan will indeed get the model running, but it's not cost-effective and will soon hit a bottleneck."

She then turned her laptop screen toward Tong Hua: "Look, this is your original plan: eight GTX Titans, dual Xeon E5 processors, 64GB of RAM. This setup would cost around 300,000 yuan, and the computing power would be around 400,000."

She recited a string of numbers, then switched to another table. "This is the solution I've adjusted for you. It's still eight cards, but I've changed it to the Sun-GTX Titan engineering test version."

Tong Hua nearly choked on his coffee: "Sun-GTX Titan engineering beta version? This thing is available on the market?"

Tang Ruixuan smiled and said, "You definitely can't buy it on the market, but I can get it."

She had absolute confidence in saying this; she could obtain the latest GPU from Sun Microsystems whenever she wanted, because this computer hardware giant was controlled by her uncle.

She closed her laptop again and instructed Tong Hua: "Senior, you need to understand one thing. In the current deep learning field, hardware is an arms race. No matter how good your algorithm is, if your computing power can't keep up, you will still fall behind others. Sun Microsystems has a special engineering sample channel for universities and research institutions. I applied for it for you."

Tong Hua certainly knew what the engineering test version meant. It meant that while ordinary people were still using the commercial version, he could use the next generation or even the generation after that hardware. In the field of deep learning, which relies on computing power, this was like having a cheat code.

Tang Ruixuan continued, "It's not just about the graphics card. I've also prepared three plans for you. The first is the initial plan, using the engineering test card I just mentioned, which should be enough for your computing power needs for the next six to eight months. The second is the mid-term expansion plan; once your data volume increases, you can add some capacity to the existing capacity."

The final design uses Sun Microsystems' next-generation architecture, codenamed GK110, which hasn't been officially released yet. It's said to be specifically designed for high-performance computers, with double-precision floating-point performance several times that of current engineering prototypes. There aren't even engineering samples available yet, but that's okay; once they are, you're guaranteed to be among the first to receive them.

Hearing this, Tong Hua didn't know what to say.

Hearing this, Tong Hua didn't know what to say.

He originally thought that with five million, he could easily assemble a few high-performance machines, rent a server room, and start running models.

But what Tang Ruixuan is showing him now is a world he has never imagined, a world where he can directly access the most cutting-edge hardware and connect directly with chip manufacturers.

"How much will all of these cost?" Tong Hua was also concerned about the price. After all, five million seemed like a lot, but in reality, it would be a bit tight once it was used.

"Your financing plan has a hardware budget of 2.2 million. Now, according to the plan I'm giving you, we can get it for about 1.8 million. The performance is also better than your original plan. With the money saved, you can hire two more people to help you record the data, so you won't be too tired by yourself."

"Thank you!" Tong Hua thought for a long time before finally saying only these two words.

Tang Ruixuan said earnestly, "Senior, you don't need to be so polite with me. We are partners now, and helping you is also helping myself. Hardware is just the foundation; the key is your algorithm and code. This is my first investment, and I hope you can give me a satisfactory result."

In the days that followed, Tong Hua experienced what true hardware freedom meant.

A few days later, the first batch of hardware arrived: eight GTX Titan engineering test cards, two ASUS dual-socket motherboards, four Xeon E5-2670s, 128GB of RAM, as well as a case and a water cooling system.

These hardware devices would cost at least 300,000 yuan at current market prices, but thanks to Tang Ruixuan's connection, Tong Hua only needed to pay 200,000 yuan in the end, meaning he only paid for the cost.

However, Tang Ruixuan explained to Tong Hua this way: "These all come with conditions. When you have the results, you'll have to write a test report for the manufacturer."

Tong Hua would certainly agree to this request. A single test report could save him tens of thousands of yuan; only a fool would refuse such a good deal.