Author: Biteye, Core Contributor Fishery Isla
Editor: Biteye, Core Contributor Crush
Recently, the term "room-temperature superconductor" is rapidly spreading globally and attracting widespread attention, and investment targets related to the concept are also experiencing continued hot trading in the capital market.
The entire narrative originated on July 22, when a South Korean research team published a paper claiming to have discovered the room-temperature superconductor LK-99 crystal, which can achieve superconductivity below 127 degrees Celsius in normal atmospheric conditions, almost equivalent to having superconducting properties in any environment.
Room-temperature superconductors have long been the physicists' dream, and undoubtedly, if this discovery is true, the fourth technological revolution will come, requiring a complete overhaul of all electronic devices in human society, even the most basic electrical wires will need to be replaced, and the rules of all industries will undergo disruptive changes.
01. Lagging Reaction of the Capital Market
As a research result that could potentially overturn the current human society, it can only be confirmed and then advanced to the application stage after undergoing global peer review and repeated experiments.
However, even before the academic community reached a conclusion, the capital market unsurprisingly began to celebrate. On August 1, the American superconductor stock AMSC surged 71% before the market opened, reaching a peak increase of 150%, which was incredibly frenzied.
However, the usually sensitive capital market made a delayed response this time, waiting until the 10th day after the South Korean team published the paper. Compared to the usual speculative logic, it was too late. To understand the reasons behind this, let's review what happened in the ten days after the paper was published.
At the time of the paper's release, it did not receive much attention.
On one hand, this was because the script seemed familiar. As early as March this year, Professor Ranga Dias of the University of Rochester in the United States had announced the creation of a room-temperature superconductor, which had attracted widespread attention but was later questioned by multiple institutions and deemed a false alarm.
On the other hand, the description in the South Korean team's paper was too fantastical, departing from the established knowledge of the academic community. My intuition tells me that room-temperature superconductors are cutting-edge technology, and various high-tech equipment must be used in the preparation process.
However, the method disclosed in the South Korean team's paper is as simple as ancient alchemy, just throwing a bunch of inexpensive powdered materials into a furnace according to a given ratio, and the equipment requirements are low enough to be done in a high school laboratory.
As a result, some academic bigwigs on Twitter referred to reproducing the LK-99 laboratory experiment as "Kitchen," indicating the low threshold for the preparation process.
However, setting aside the academic discussion and looking at it from a human perspective, if this is academic fraud, the preparation method is too simple. It would only take a small cost and a short amount of time to expose the fraud.
Furthermore, the South Korean team had internal conflicts, fighting for the position of the third author (Note: the Nobel Prize can only have a maximum of 3 recipients, and the first and second author positions for this research have already been determined). So, if LK-99 superconductivity is indeed a hoax, the team would not need to stage such a ridiculous drama.
Going back to the timeline of the capital market frenzy in the 10 days before, theoretically, it would take 3 and a half days to produce a sample. However, for a full 9 days, no one in the world was able to produce a sample that matched the description provided by the South Korean team.
But on the 10th day, laboratories in China and the United States announced that they had achieved more positive results in the preparation of the superconducting crystal LK-99, leading to the market frenzy on August 1.
02. Predicting the Landing Time of LK-99's Preparation Process
If room-temperature superconductor materials are truly discovered, how long will it take for us to enjoy the benefits of this wave?
To answer this question, we first need to understand why, up to now, only a few micrometer-sized samples have been synthesized in many laboratories worldwide. We also need to understand why the LK-99 crystal may possess superconducting properties, and why the South Korean team is willing to share this technology.
According to superconducting theory, if the special structure in the material can utilize the pressure between particles to lock them together (Cooper pairs), room-temperature superconductivity can be achieved.
Through high-temperature firing, the South Korean team happened to form this special structure in a sample, where copper particles enveloped lead particles, thereby achieving the superconducting effect. However, this firing method is like a lottery, as the particles must randomly move to specific positions during the firing process to reproduce the effect shown in the South Korean team's video.
This explains why the seemingly simple preparation process makes it so difficult for third parties to replicate the experiment, and also explains why the South Korean team has been unable to produce samples.
At the same time, the South Korean team's decision to abandon secrecy and publicly share the technical details also makes sense. If they had discovered LK-99 in 1999 as they publicly claimed, kept it a secret for so many years, and were unable to produce a presentable sample, there would be a risk of being preempted by others if they continued to keep it a secret.
In that case, it would be better to just go public, secure a Nobel Prize spot, and make a profit from the patents they had already applied for.
From the current global laboratory replication results, it is evident that the success rate of preparing LK-99 using the method provided in the South Korean team's paper is low. This lottery-like preparation method is only suitable for the laboratory verification stage.
If it is confirmed in the future that LK-99 indeed possesses superconducting properties, the next step will be for scientists to research a method for creating a large-scale, low-cost process to encase copper particles around lead particles to form a special channel. This is not an easy task, and it will require industrial cooperation from various governments before large-scale room-temperature superconducting materials can be achieved. Only then will the so-called fourth technological revolution truly begin, but it will take at least 20-30 years for superconductors to become widespread in consumer electronic products.
The primary application scenarios for superconductors are in high-power and high-precision fields, such as military and aerospace. To promote their use in consumer electronics, clear application scenarios and effective business models must be established, demonstrating significant improvements in user experience and profit potential before companies will push for their adoption.
Furthermore, the introduction of superconductors will require an upgrade and transformation of the electronic industry chain, including power supply, control, interfaces, and manufacturing equipment. The entire process of upgrading from materials to components to products will take a long time.
Taking all these factors into account, a reasonable estimate for the entire process from technology to industrialization and then commercialization of large-scale superconductor application in the research and production of consumer electronic products is 20-30 years.
Therefore, in the short term, even if LK-99 possesses superconducting properties, it will only remain at the laboratory and academic level. The recent frenzy in the capital market is undoubtedly driven by speculative trading.
03. AI and Web3 (Blockchain) in the Post-Superconducting Era
Finally, let's look ahead to what it would mean if humans truly manufactured room-temperature superconductors and the impact on other areas of technological innovation.
On a macro level, the most immediate impact would be on electrical and electronic products. All devices and products related to the power system will undergo passive upgrades, reducing weight and volume, leading to sustained demand for decades.
Under such massive demand, superconductors will bring about a new industry worth trillions of dollars. Just replacing the currently underperforming motors and wires is an enormous engineering feat, creating an exceptionally large demand for employment, enough to completely revitalize the currently sluggish world economy, much like the electrification technology did in the past.
It will also reshape the industrial landscape, putting pressure on many traditional industries to transform.
On a macro level, superconductor technology will restructure the global value chain, with technology and manufacturing powerhouses having an advantage.
Mastering superconductor technology will be a key factor in enhancing a country's comprehensive strength. It will directly impact a country's future position in the economy, industry, and defense. This will spark competition among countries in the field of superconductors, change trade flows and content, and make related raw materials new important trade commodities.
In specific industries, traditional fields such as power, electronics, and information will face disruptive impacts. Some emerging industry chains will become new growth points under the transformation of traditional industries. This includes the currently highly funded AI and blockchain.
Currently, AI development is limited by hardware computing power. Once superconducting materials are applied in the chip industry, it will lead to a qualitative improvement in computing power. The extent of improvement depends on the depth of human research into superconductors. Superconductors will enhance electronic circuits in two ways:
First, using superconducting materials in structures similar to transistors (Superconducting computing) will make chips faster, significantly improve performance, reduce power consumption, and allow for denser packaging than current traditional transistors. The current scale of AI training will no longer be a problem.
Going deeper, after further research into superconducting properties, the development of superconducting quantum computing will open up a new field, leading to an exponential improvement.
Superconducting quantum computing is a branch of solid-state quantum computing, within the category of quantum computers. It uses superconducting qubits as artificial atoms or quantum dots to realize superconducting electronic circuits.
Internet and chip giants such as Google, IBM, and Intel have been laying out their research in superconducting quantum computing for a long time and have accumulated some technology. If LK-99 does indeed possess superconducting properties, human research into quantum computing will take a big step forward.
Speaking of quantum computers, it is necessary to discuss the impact on blockchain.
In terms of security, it should be noted that because quantum computers are not good at solving hash functions, they will not be used to mine Bitcoin. "Using quantum computers to mine Bitcoin" is a common sense mistake.
The threat of quantum computers to Bitcoin lies not in mining, but in attacking transactions. Quantum computers are very good at solving a certain type of mathematical problem that current computers cannot solve in a reasonable time, such as elliptic curve algorithms, which are the underlying algorithms for almost all digital currencies or blockchain.
It is important to note that "a certain type" of problem can be updated from the software level to use encryption algorithms resistant to quantum computing.
Moreover, from a cost and benefit perspective, using quantum computers to attack the Bitcoin system is actually not cost-effective. If the basic security of Bitcoin cannot be guaranteed, the consensus mechanism and user trust that form the basis of Bitcoin's value will collapse.
When Bitcoin loses its value support, it will become worthless. Even if the attacker can obtain all the Bitcoin, since it is already worthless, the attack will be completely meaningless, just a fleeting dream.
On the contrary, the basic infrastructure of the blockchain, DePIN, will benefit from superconductors. Imagine that through superconducting technology, hardware efficiency can be greatly improved, zk computation, decentralized storage, decentralized transmission, etc., will usher in another revolution in productivity. The confirmation time of blockchain will be reduced to microseconds, and blockchain gas costs will decrease by 100 times, leading to a true mass adoption moment for Web3.
It can be foreseen that the breakthrough in superconducting materials will accelerate the progress of human civilization. It will not only bring about a leap in technological development but also bring more breakthrough growth to existing innovative fields, including blockchain and Web3.
All we can do now is wait quietly for good news from the academic community.
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