Blacklight Biotechnology Data Center

The name "Blacklight Biotechnology" spread like wildfire following the news of its $4 billion contract with Facebook.

For the first time, countless people turned their attention to this little-known company, and with it came the rapid growth of its product, Little X Translation Assistant.

It was more effective than the tens of millions Xia Yin spent on advertising.

What's more, the contract Chen Chen signed with Facebook was for platform exclusivity only. This meant that while Facebook users could access it for free, Chen Chen could still charge individual users.

Thus, leveraging the public attention, Little X Translation Assistant ultimately adopted a monthly subscription model.

The membership fee was set at 25 yuan per month.

For a discount, users could opt for a one-time payment of 120 yuan for six months, saving 30 yuan.

The most cost-effective option was the annual membership, a one-time payment of 200 yuan for a year, saving 100 yuan.

Additionally, new users could enjoy a 15-day free trial. Every time a user shared the service and successfully referred a new user to register, they would receive an extra three days of free usage.

These were the prices for users in the Central Continent Region. For other regions, prices would be adjusted proportionally based on the local economic conditions.

Just a few days after Chen Chen reached an agreement with Facebook, Ye Dongmei, an employee of Blacklight Biotechnology, was investigated and found to have engaged in misconduct and accepted bribes during her tenure as an assistant manager. She was subsequently fired by Blacklight Biotechnology.

Meanwhile, Chen Chen, under the company's name, purchased a failing IDC data center in the Shangdu Industrial Park.

A data center, or Internet Data Center, is an intermediary that provides information services such as collection, storage, and processing for internet companies, all based on the internet network.

Taking Xia Yin's father's web game company as an example:

After a new user registers for a game developed by Huiyao Company, how should Huiyao Company record that user's game information so that their data isn't lost when they log in next time?

Typically, Huiyao Company has two options:

The first option: Build their own server to support tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of user accesses every moment.

This involves building a server from scratch, requiring at least one machine room with adequate cooling systems, plus the cost of professional maintenance personnel. It's a significant investment.

The second option: Entrust the task of storing this information to a data center. The company can then focus solely on game development and maintenance.

Simply put, a data center is just a public machine room dedicated to storing the network information of various companies.

This is what's known as cloud servers.

The data center Chen Chen bought was one with outdated equipment, frequent outages, severe data latency, and a host of other problems, putting it on the brink of closure.

By scale, this data center was already considered large, with eight machine rooms housing over 4,000 servers. Each machine room measured 10x50 meters, and including the office space, the entire building covered an area of 5,000 square meters.

It was originally a data branch under the Central Continent Region's public enterprise, Telecom. Due to its long establishment, much of its equipment had aged to the point where it couldn't be upgraded and had completely fallen behind the times.

Furthermore, according to TIA classification, this data center was only at the most basic Tier I level, losing its competitive edge among the numerous newly established advanced data centers.

As a result, Chen Chen acquired it from Telecom for only 20 million yuan, which included the remaining two years of the land lease.

After the purchase, Chen Chen didn't immediately upgrade or replace the old server equipment. Instead, he first acquired a transformer.

Chen Chen had initially considered buying a regional transformer, but worried that installing one might cause abnormal local power consumption and attract the government's attention. Therefore, he settled for a single 10,000 KVA, 35 KV, all-copper, oil-immersed transformer.

When the truck delivered the transformer, Chen Chen realized that this single unit was the size of a room.

This transformer had three times the capacity of the data center's original transformer.

Actually, the server power consumption of a data center is secondary; the biggest power draw comes from the machine room's cooling systems.

According to market data on data center power consumption: server power consumption accounts for 40% of the total, cooling accounts for 55%, and other power sources and lighting make up about 5%.

A data center of this size would normally require a 3,000 KVA transformer for full supply.

Now, with only a threefold increase, it shouldn't attract the attention of the power company, right?

Chen Chen pondered, stroking his chin.

In fact, the best way to power the USB drives would be to build power plants in other regions.

For example, in the Yinzhou District or Africa District, where local governments would offer Chen Chen a great deal of freedom, unlike his current situation where he had to tread carefully with every action.

However, building a power plant was an astronomical cost, something Chen Chen truly couldn't afford before.

But with the recent arrival of the $4 billion from Facebook, he now had the capital to try.

Still, distant water can't quench a nearby fire. The construction of a power plant takes at least a year, so it wasn't an immediate solution.

Xia Yin couldn't understand Chen Chen's peculiar actions.

He could have chosen to rent cloud servers, but Chen Chen insisted on spending a large sum to buy an old data center. Aside from the land deed and building value, the ancient servers inside should have long been scrapped for scrap metal.

However, Chen Chen was the boss. After several unsuccessful attempts to persuade him, Xia Yin, though extremely frustrated, could only comply with Chen Chen's wishes.

Not only that, but within a few days, Chen Chen spent a fortune to completely upgrade the data center's expensive liquid cooling system and replace all the servers, truly selling the old ones for scrap metal.

Xia Yin: "What the f*ck?"

While renovations were underway, Chen Chen also redesigned the power system. Not only was the transformer replaced, but a fortress-like main control room was built next to it.

The main control room not only managed the entire data center's power system, but Chen Chen also converted the main control room into a spacious living space with two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom, spanning over a hundred square meters.

The entire company was baffled by this approach.

After the main control room was completed two weeks later, Chen Chen moved in furniture and living supplies and took up residence himself.

Everyone who knew about this was bewildered, their only explanation being that it was probably just a rich person's eccentricity...

Ultimately, Chen Chen moved alone into the newly renamed "Blacklight Biotechnology Data Center," a multi-million dollar mansion.

Only Chen Chen knew that with the transformer upgraded from 200 KVA to 10,000 KVA, he could definitely materialize more interesting movie props this time...

Thanks to the generous donations from [Feng Wu Ting Chang], [Shuyou 160621192451341], and [Shuyou 20200102135255961], the latter two I