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The day of the founding launch event for Prism's two major research centers soon arrived.
This launch event would be held inside Prism's research center tower, and reporters from across the country and indeed from all over the world had, as if by appointment, hurried here.
This was Erik Donovan's first time setting foot in the Mech Town the outside world spoke of in legend.
In the town, the research center tower was the hottest topic right now, and many residents were full of pride whenever they brought it up.
After all, this was just an economically undeveloped little town, and being able to boast a twenty-floor research building, one that had developed the most cutting-edge brain-control prosthetic in the world inside it, was already a major event worth writing into the town's history.
To say nothing of the fact that this building was supposedly going to be upgraded into a tech park down the line, and that it was connected to Ryan, which made it all the more worthy of being written up in detail.
"There are so many reporters here." Anna Whitfield looked at the street scenes around the town and noticed that a good many of the people who'd come were reporter teams.
There were domestic ones, and even foreign ones, all interviewing the town's residents. The place had clearly become a focal point.
"Prism's launch events have always required invitations. With this many reporters, surely a lot of them couldn't have gotten one?" Anna looked at these peers and found it a little strange.
At the Triton-1 launch event Prism had held last time, fewer than a hundred people had qualified for admission. If you figured three people per media outlet, then only about thirty invitations had gone out.
But she'd already counted reporters from more than fifty outlets right now.
"What's so strange about that?" Erik calmly helped the cameraman, Lou Camden, shoulder the filming equipment. "A news hotspot this big, even if they can't get in, they'll come to bask in it. At the very least it proves they were here once."
"Let's go. We'll head to the research center."
The car drove up to the entrance of the research center. The construction sites around the building had all been sealed off, and the only thing to be seen was row upon row of promotional displays.
Because there were only two invitation slots this time, the cameraman was left outside. After passing through the same strict security as last time, Erik and Anna walked into the tower.
The inside of the building was just like the showcase venue last time, with many holographic projections set up to form a corridor brimming with a sci-fi feel, leading straight to the launch event site.
The long corridor was divided into two sides, one displaying information about the brain-machine research center, the other holding material on the artificial intelligence center.
Quite a few people were gathered before the holographic projections now, and among them were no small number of old faces he recognized.
But.
"There are so many fewer people." Anna sighed at the reporters on-site.
The turnout this time was at least half of what it had been last time, which was to say there were probably only fifty people on-site, and the foreign reporters who'd qualified for entry numbered fewer than the fingers on one hand.
For so few media reporters to be invited to a launch event and for it to still draw this much attention, with no small number of outlets coming to soak up the heat outside even though they couldn't get in, only a single company like Prism had this kind of clout.
Entering the event hall, the basic arrangement was the same as the previous launch event, all in the format of a tea reception, with every table equipped with its own dedicated server.
And this time the tables had been switched out for transparent glass ones. If anyone wanted to do something under the table, it could be spotted at a glance.
Ryan had come to the site for this launch event too. Right now was precisely the time he urgently needed Summon Points to unlock material, so he'd come over to show his face and reap a fresh round of points.
The launch event soon began, with the organizers livestreaming it online all the same.
The establishment of the two major research centers this time actually didn't have much bearing on the general public, and the attention it drew fell far short of the previous launch event.
But the moment people saw Ryan seated in the hall, they perked right up.
They suddenly realized that this might be no ordinary launch event.
The news that Ryan had appeared at the launch event site spread rapidly across the entire internet, and countless people opened the livestream because of it.
Even abroad, many people, upon receiving the news, dragged themselves up in the middle of the night to open the livestream.
They were all Ryan's almost cultlike die-hard fans, here simply to see Ryan. The overseas seabed-monster theory was something they'd been propping up all along.
"It's a great honor to have you all attend Prism Sciences' second official launch event. This time we won't be releasing a product, only announcing an important piece of news."
Up on the podium, Ryan's father's presence was in full force, his tone and gestures brimming with confidence. He soon announced the formal establishment of the two research centers, along with the news of who their respective heads would be.
The two heads then walked up onto the stage, greeted everyone, and began introducing themselves and the newly established research centers.
When they saw these two people, the industry insiders following the livestream all sat up straight.
The brain-machine field went without saying. No one in the country could outplay them now, and it would be even less possible for anyone to outplay them in the future.
But it was clear Prism meant to play for real in artificial intelligence too.
They'd actually invited someone of Hargrove's caliber over.
Hargrove's reputation in the country's AI field had been quite resounding before. Everyone had assumed he'd found an AI company of his own after resigning and ending his contract, and no one had expected him to be poached by Prism.
"Prism really has spent a fortune on this."
"With a size like theirs and no technology to speak of, what exactly makes them confident they can gain a firm footing in AI?"
The AI heads at several of the country's big firms were puzzled at this.
They put their minds to work and quickly arrived at a key point, looking toward the back of the head that was all the livestream showed of Ryan.
Could Prism's confidence and trump card be him?
But no one had heard of him making any achievements in AI.
Just as they were pondering, Finch had already finished speaking on the stage about the brain-machine research center's founding vision and future development plans.
"The original intent behind our research center's founding is to study the mysteries of brain science. We hope that one day we can fully unravel the mysteries of the human brain, while at the same time advancing brain-machine technology to benefit humanity in more fields."
"To date, our research center has already entered into cooperation with ten companies across different fields. The partnership projects include both medicine and electronic devices. Perhaps one day in the future, all of you will be able to put on a pair of glasses and control every electronic device in your home with your mind, or even roam freely inside a virtual reality game."
Finch's musings about the future had the livestream audience stirred up to no end, the various scenes he described surfacing in their minds.
If it were another company saying these words, they'd think it was bragging. But the company speaking up there was Prism Sciences.
Triton-1 had already completely proven just how formidable the brain-control technology in Prism's hands was.
The next person to take the stage and speak after Finch was Hargrove.
He spoke with a smile. "Professor Finch's vision of the future just now had everyone thoroughly enthralled, but the truth is, our artificial intelligence research center is no worse off."
Suddenly, his expression turned serious, and he declared with absolute finality:
"Because, next, our research center is going to push artificial intelligence toward a new summit, and open up a new era."
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