Chapter 674 - Charge Dropped
“After a week of investigation, we have determined that Future Technology’s operation acted within the principle of a free market. The litigation against Future Technology will be thrown out in the next few days…” In front of the cameras, a Department of Justice spokesperson read out the words without any expression.
The Capital who gave the go ahead to the investigation suddenly changed their mind, the Senators suddenly spoke out questioning the credibility of the investigation.
The Minister of Justice almost wanted to puke blood because of his fury.
M State wasthe home base for B City Consortium and everyone knew what this meant. What the Minister didn’t understand was, if you first pushed for the anti-trust investigation, why did you change your mind all of it sudden?
The Department of Justice could no longer withstand the immense pressure from the outraged public. The Capital demanded them to cease investigation immediately and solve any of the lingering problems. Now that even the fat nerds were criticizing the government for preventing them from searching for their true love in virtual reality…
A fine would require evidence. And although it was not impossible to be somewhat reckless in a law-governed state, everyone still must play by the rules of the game. Just like Future Technology had stated, they didn’t fit the definition of a monopoly by any means as they were just formed for less than two years.
Since they couldn’t be slapped with a fine, the litigation must be thrown out.
On the night of the decision, Future Technology posted an announcement.
“We welcome the correct decision made by the Department of Justice. Future Technology will abide with a fair and justice competitive spirit and operate without interfering with the principles of the market. From today on, the virtual reality network will return. Future Technology, proudly serving you!”
The announcement erupted into waves of cheers on the Internet.
“Hahaha! Godly Land is finally back online! I haven’t played in a week!”
“Our virtual reality is back. This is democratic freedom!”
“Thank God. Amnesia is terrible. Although I don’t wear the helmet every night, it feels like something was missing without being able to use the helmet.”
With the rumor of Future Technology exiting UA blown out of water and servers back online, Godly Land’s concurrent user count broke the 100 million mark!
While Microsoft and Google were envious with Future Technology’s success, they must admit defeat. They previously optimistically thought the lawsuit would last for at least two years and they could use the time to break through the neural connection challenge to develop a replacement for Phantom and take over Future Technology’s North America market. But who would have thought that the anti-trust investigation would end so swiftly and unexpectedly.
While this anti-trust investigation ended, the influence of virtual reality alerted the Capital and strengthened UA’s determination in the development of virtual reality technology.
The Capital established a 400 million US dollar fund dedicated to the development of virtual reality in the military field. The ideal candidates for the fund were naturally the two home grown tech giants – Google and Microsoft.
Not only UA, Nippon on the other side of the Pacific also announced that Mitsubishi and Sony will form a partnership in virtual reality to fund a 5 billion dollars of training equipment for the police and arms force.
Although Hua didn’t make a specific announcement, the Central Research Institute already listed the virtual reality project as a top research project.
However, no country could make progress in the field of neural connection…
From some elements, the withdrawal of the anti-trust investigation increased the countries’ spending in virtual reality projects. No country would permit such an influential virtual reality network to be controlled in other people’s hands.
And Future Technology just needed to maintain the lead in technology to make the countries attempting to breakthrough unable to leave them.
…
Papua Island, New Malaysia Special District.
Compared with the barrenness half a year ago, this area became the largest industrial park on Papua Island with the transformation brought by Future Group.
Steel plants, aluminum plants, electronic manufacturing plants and other high contaminant plants sprouted up and completed Xin’s environmental transition. At the same time, apartments, supermarkets, schools, bars, and other infrastructures also appeared that greatly improved the life of the Papua Island citizens.
The parts of the robot, the base of Penglai, the battery of the electric vehicle… continuous amount of cargos transported from the port to Ange Island formed the bloodline to Jiang Chen’s technology empire. The island no longer just housed Future Group’s subsidiary, with the move of highly polluting industries from Ange Island to Papua Island, other Malaysia and New Guinea islands flooded in. This place became a hotbed of investment in South Asia.
Future Group certainly benefited from the special district. The Malaysian and New Guinean government were all thankful for Future Group’s decision to invest there. This was reflected from the economic policy that supported Future Group’s continuous investment in this area and oppressive attitude against environmental organizations.
Both country’s government was desperate for Future Group to throw more money at the poorly developed Papua Island, how would they permit a small group of people’s protest? High polluting industry drives the growth of GDP, in turn, attracting more investment which is a necessary step in the rise of a developing country.
In less than a week after Future Technology and B City Consortium settled their differences, Jiang Chen took his private plane to the biggest island in the Pacific and arrived in his industrial park.
It was his first visit since New Malaysia Specific District was formed.
“On behalf of the special district’s people, I welcome you, Mr. Jiang Chen.” The governor of the special district Mackey extended his hand out from far out in the distance with a giant smile.
Despite the specific district being built on the border along New Guinea and Malaysia, the administration of the specific district was handed to the more influential Malaysia.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Mackey.” Jiang Chen shook his hand and small talked, before they both boarded Future Heavy Industrial’s vehicle, headeing to the headquarter.
Jiang Chen’s visit here was not for travel.
Mackey who sensed something was about to unfold attempted to find an answer from Jiang Chen indirectly, “Is Future Group making a new move?””If there is plan to build a high tech plant, could Future Group consider the special district first?”
Jiang Chen just smiled without providing an explanation.
Just two days ago, Future Group’s material science lab, the graphene material research team led by Lu Yuan, discovered a major breakthrough in graphene application in the semiconductor industry which made graphene semiconductor a possibility.
Of course, the major breakthrough in this short period of time was attributable to the resources gathered from the apocalypse. And in the production line of the virtual reality helmet, the graphene semiconductor was already used in the automated line. The information was just undisclosed to the public.
Once graphene semiconductors were introduced, it would be a giant leap in the current semiconductor industry!
Now, since Future Group introduced the graphene manufacturing technology, they naturally would not give up the giant market.
Future Technology would not only be the Microsoft in the new era, its goal was also to be the Intel of the new era!
It was time for a new king in the global semiconductor reign.