Chapter 113 112: Electromagnetic Cannon
Li Qingsong assigned this first supercomputer to the Jade Emperor AI, greatly enhancing its capabilities.
As a result, Li Qingsong saw that under the Jade Emperor AI's unified management, all the bases and industrial AI systems throughout the Jupiter System began to operate in greater harmony, their cooperation becoming more seamless.
The transport of raw materials, factory production, inventory management, subsequent shipping, port entries and exits, processing at the next factory, and final application—the entire chain now operated seamlessly, as if a critical artery had finally been cleared.
With 100 2-nanometer chip fabrication plants going into operation, a steady stream of high-quality 2-nanometer chips was soon being produced.
At this point, Li Qingsong built a second supercomputer and assigned it to his second most important AI, Wukong.
At present, there were no suitable Warships for it to command, so it couldn't run drills to gather data for its evolution. Instead, the Wukong AI had to resort to running internal combat simulations in the virtual space of the supercomputer to continue its development.
Virtual space could not perfectly replicate reality, nor could virtual battles ever truly replace real-world combat.
The real world was simply too complex; no matter how powerful a supercomputer was, it could never simulate every possible contingency.
Still, it served as a useful reference. They could always cross-reference the data with real-world results later.
And so, this second supercomputer, with its immense boost in processing power, also began running at full capacity around the clock.
Seeing the Wukong AI finally free from the constraints of insufficient processing power, Li Qingsong breathed a sigh of relief.
'Let's see... I've been in the Jupiter System for over eighty years now...'
'Eighty years of tireless effort, of developing day and night, and I've finally reached this stage.'
'But this is still just the beginning. My current technological and industrial strength is nowhere near enough to confront the Blutuk Civilization. I have to keep pushing forward.'
Setting aside his brief moment of satisfaction, Li Qingsong turned his attention to another research facility.
The electromagnetic weapons research base.
Even while he had been focused on miniaturizing dual-stage pressurized Thrust Devices and advancing chip technology, Li Qingsong had consistently allocated a significant portion of his material resources and brainpower to Warship-related R&D.
Electromagnetic weapons were a major focus of this Warship-related research.
Over the years, Li Qingsong's mastery of electromagnetic weapon technology had steadily advanced through continuous iteration.
In the field of electromagnetic propulsion, Li Qingsong had dabbled in both ion thrusters and electromagnetic catapults.
However, when applying the technology to create a weapon like an Electromagnetic Cannon, the technical details were quite different.
Compared to the subatomic particles propelled by ion thrusters, the projectile an Electromagnetic Cannon needed to fire was far too massive.
The leap from a subatomic Particle to an Electromagnetic Cannon Projectile weighing even a fraction of a gram was an increase in mass of countless orders of magnitude.
Conversely, compared to the payload of an electromagnetic catapult, the Electromagnetic Cannon Projectile was minuscule.
The drop from a standard cargo container weighing thousands of tons to a projectile of a mere fraction of a gram was a decrease in mass of just as many orders of magnitude.
Thus, it fell into an awkward middle ground between the microscopic and macroscopic scales. Factoring in a whole host of other problems—such as rate of fire, instantaneous acceleration, stability, and energy consumption—made developing an Electromagnetic Cannon an incredibly difficult task.
But the difficulty had to be overcome. In future interstellar warfare, gunpowder weapons would have no place.
After a period of arduous research, Li Qingsong finally developed the first-generation Electromagnetic Cannon.
This version of the Electromagnetic Cannon used super-massive coil propulsion technology.
To achieve the conversion from electrical power to magnetic force and finally to kinetic energy, Li Qingsong constructed enormous electromagnetic coils.
These coils had a diameter of a full 20 meters and a length of 50 meters—a true behemoth that looked like a great cannon capable of leveling mountains and parting seas.
But the cannon's performance was frankly embarrassing.
It consumed ten thousand kilowatt-hours of electricity to fire a single projectile, yet it could only launch a tiny 0.1-gram projectile at 300 meters per second—less powerful than even conventional Gunpowder Guns.
Moreover, after each shot, it required a full minute to cool down before it could fire again.
Its rate of fire was so low it couldn't even match a handgun.
But that didn't matter. As long as the fundamental principles of the Electromagnetic Cannon worked and they could actually build one, that was enough. All that followed was a matter of patient, incremental work: iterating, optimizing, and improving, bit by bit.
Coincidentally, Li Qingsong had recently achieved a massive increase in his maximum number of consciousness connections, which had soared from 10 million to 100 million. He now had a huge surplus of both brainpower and material resources.
So, numerous Clones under Li Qingsong's command arrived at the research base.
While continuing large-scale production, research on countless scientific projects, and the rapid iteration of chip technology, they began an all-out effort to upgrade the Electromagnetic Cannon.
The first-generation Electromagnetic Cannon was fragile and a single unit couldn't generate much data?
Then build 1,000 of them and run the tests simultaneously!
The first-generation Electromagnetic Cannon's power consumption was immense, and existing power plants couldn't meet the demand?
Then build a dedicated nuclear fission plant for each and every cannon!
The first-generation Electromagnetic Cannon was incredibly difficult to manufacture, and existing production capacity couldn't keep up?
Then build more factories dedicated solely to producing its components!
Under these conditions, it took only a few years. Through a constant cycle of building the first-generation Electromagnetic Cannons only for them to break and be rebuilt, Li Qingsong gathered all the data he needed.
On that foundation, Li Qingsong quickly developed the second-generation Electromagnetic Cannon.
The second-generation cannon boasted a massive performance increase over the first.
Its diameter was reduced to 4 meters and its length to 30 meters. Power consumption also dropped to one-tenth of its predecessor's.
Correspondingly, its performance was vastly improved.
The muzzle velocity of its Electromagnetic Cannon Projectiles broke one kilometer per second for the first time, and its rate of fire reached ten rounds per minute.
Although still inferior to Gunpowder Guns, it showed immense potential.
Following the same research model he'd used for the first generation, Li Qingsong immediately built another thousand units. He then continued to gather data, test various configurations and hypotheses, and press on with his tireless research.
Soon, the third-generation Electromagnetic Cannon was born, followed by the fourth, the fifth, and so on.
Each new generation of the Electromagnetic Cannon brought a massive leap in performance over the last.
In this way, more than a decade passed. Now, with 2-nanometer chips in mass production and the supercomputer fully operational, the latest version was finally complete. This was the eighth-generation Electromagnetic Cannon, the first one Li Qingsong believed possessed true combat capability.
Now, it was time to test this eighth-generation Electromagnetic Cannon.