The leader was a young man nad Lin Feng, only thirty-five years old, yet he had served as a core researcher at both Google Brain and DeepMind, and was a top expert in the field of AI for scientific discovery. What he brought wasn’t specific code or functional modules, but a grand vision for a novel "next-generation intelligent scientific research data platform" based on cloud-native, microservices architecture, and data lake concepts.
"President Zhang, we can no longer be content with passively developing isolated data conversion interfaces and drivers for each different brand and model of equipnt as we did in the past." Lin Feng sketched a complex architecture diagram rapidly on the whiteboard in the eting room, his eyes shining with the unique fervor of a tech geek, "That’s just treating the symptoms, not the root cause. What we need to build is a unified, intelligent, scalable, and future-oriented ’scientific research operating system’ or ’digital base’!"
He elaborated on his blueprint in detail: "All scientific research equipnt connected to this platform, whether dostically produced or imported, regardless of brand or communication protocol, once connected, their raw data can be automatically recognized, parsed, standardized, cleaned, and normalized by the platform, and tagged with unified tadata. Then, this high-quality data is stored in a unified data lake, ready to be called upon by various AI analysis models, visualization tools, and collaboration platforms as needed. We can even integrate an automated workflow engine at the platform level to link different device operations and data analysis steps, achieving truly intelligent and automated scientific research!"
The team mbers he brought were all highly skilled: experts proficient in various underlying industrial communication protocols, capable of "translating" any device "language"; engineers skilled in building high-throughput, low-latency distributed computing engines to process massive amounts of scientific data; front-end experts specializing in scientific data 3D visualization and virtual reality interaction; and algorithm scientists dedicated to constructing knowledge graphs in the scientific research field, enabling intelligent data associations.
They virtually overthrew and reconstructed Xunkai Software’s original software architecture and technology stack with determination and the courage to start over.
In fact, although Xunkai was a leading dostic company, compared to those top multinational firms, they were just an enlarged knockoff workshop.
Now, Lin Feng’s team designed a new, open, and scalable standard protocol for scientific equipnt data access; developed AI-based intelligent data cleaning, correction, and normalization algorithms capable of automatically identifying and handling common data noise and anomalies; built a powerful, elastically scalable distributed computing engine to et future massive data computing needs; and began close cooperation with the Digital dical Center of Nandu dical University, deeply integrating its core AI models and capabilities in the form of microservices into the platform to provide a range of intelligent services from image recognition and sequence analysis to drug design prediction.
Although this new and grand platform was still in a highly tense developnt stage, far from complete, with the underlying architecture continuously adjusted and various microservices still in integration testing, and the user interface being quite rudintary, its forward-looking nature, openness, and strong potential already gave President Zhang infinite hope and an exciting future.
He no longer hesitated or regretted the "technical compatibility subsidy" offered by others in the past, but instead unhesitatingly devoted the company’s resources to fully support Lin Feng’s seemingly "crazy" but visionary idea.
He knew that once this platform was successfully built and matured, it would not only serve the "Breaking Wall" plan but also potentially beco the core "digital infrastructure" or "new production power tool" for the future of China’s biopharmaceutical research and even broader basic scientific research fields.
More importantly, his Xunkai would beco a true dostic leader, able to compete with top international companies.
...
As for Ruixing Research Institute, the alliance’s brain and chief integrator, it has also beco a gathering place for top talents.
Huang Jiacai personally took command, using remarkable courage and ticulous planning to optimize and combine top hardware engineers, software scientists, biotechnology experts, and applied scientists from around the globe into several virtual task teams with clear goals and defined responsibilities.
Their core mission was not simply to replicate or imitate a few imported devices, but, based on the specific and dynamic scientific research needs of Yang Ping’s group, and the current technological "capability boundaries" and breakthrough potential of each mber company in the alliance, to perform creative system design, integration optimization, and performance exploration.
They deeply learned from and developed Wang’s Company’s idea of "hardware intelligent algorithms" collaborative optimization, conducting extrely rigorous performance testing, parater calibration, error analysis, and interface standardization on the core hardware modules provided by each mber of the alliance (such as optical components, sensors, actuators, pumps, valves, etc.). They began rapidly developing specialized "application plugins" and automation scripts for specific experintal workflows of Yang Ping’s group on the foundational software platform constructed by Lin Feng’s team. They utilized new types of enzys and optimized reagent formulas provided by Susan’s team, conducting repeated and comparative experints in Ruixing’s self-built advanced validation lab, finely optimizing experintal processes and reaction conditions, seeking the best performance combination of dostically produced equipnt, reagents, and thodologies.
The noise levels of dostic core components, long-term operational temperature drift, and inter-batch consistency still visibly lagged behind top-grade imported products refined over decades. The new software platform’s underlying architecture was complex, hiding nurous bugs and performance bottlenecks that required constant day-and-night debugging and optimization. New reagents also needed to undergo the strictest tests in Yang Ping’s group’s real and demanding experintal scenarios.
The first prototype of an "integrated high-performance cell analysis system" based entirely on an autonomous technological route, with key components and software systems all provided by mber companies of the alliance, was successfully assembled!
It might appear slightly rough and pieced together, with modules from different partners, varying chassis sizes, sowhat chaotic cable connections, and even temporary manual reinforcents required at certain seams. However, when the engineers powered it up and initialized the system with nervous and expectant anticipation,
the control screen loads all paraters normally, each module passes the self-check, the robotic arm smoothly performs sample transfer operations, the high-resolution cara captures clear cell images, and the built-in AI algorithms perform real-ti recognition and analysis, ultimately outputting structured data to the unified platform database.
The laboratory erupted in prolonged cheers full of pride and joy!
"Although on individual trics, we still cannot match the best levels abroad," said a seasoned Chinese-Arican scientist returned from the National Institutes of Health, USA, looking at the stable and reliable data flow on the screen with great emotion, "the most crucial part is that it works! From sample preparation, loading, reaction, detection, to data analysis, the entire complex scientific workflow can achieve an automated closed loop! This ans we’ve established our own ’roots’, our own ’platform’. With this entirely self-controlled foundational platform, we can continuously iterate, optimize, and upgrade hardware, improve software, and revise reagents. No longer do we need to worry about sudden supply cuts, being held back, or arbitrary price increases! We’ve gained control of our progress!"
Huang Jiacai stood at the back of the excited crowd, striving to suppress the turbulence within him.
He gazed at this prototype of an "autonomous platform", which represented countless people’s sweat and wisdom. Although tender, it brimd with tenacious life force and infinite possibilities.
He knew the hardest leap from 0 to 1 had taken its most crucial and solid step. Next, it’s the climb from 1 to 10, to 100.
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