Actually, Qiao Ze's impression of his three roommates wasn't too bad.
Although they hadn't known each other for long, this was, after all, his first foray into communal living.
This should have been an experience during his high school days, but unfortunately, Qiao Ze didn't really adapt well to the school environment back then and was always by Lu Xiuxiu's side.
It wasn't until university that he had the chance to share a room with three roommates.
Although each of these guys had their faults, like Zhang Zhou being a bit of a joker, Gu Zhengliang pretending to be serious and Chen Yiwen always having some strange thoughts, to be honest, Qiao Ze actually found some warmth in this short communal life that his peers should have experienced long ago.
He even felt a hint of friendship, something he had never felt before.
So he was willing to accept the invitation from room 408.
Even though he usually didn't say much during meals, it was nice to take a walk and casually listen to whatever nonsense they felt like spouting after eating.
On the way to the canteen for the feast, Su Mucheng had already started giving Qiao Ze a heads up.
"Qiao, is Chen Yiwen up to something good again?"
"Hehe, he heard that Group Wisdom was recommended for this year's National Science Progress Award. He's definitely treating us to a meal today to find out if his name is on the list for the project submission."
"Is that so?" Qiao Ze was somewhat surprised; he had not heard about this and wasn't even very clear on what kind of award the National Science Progress Award was.
Qiao Ze shook his head.
"It's really happening. Tan has received the notification. He didn't tell you?"
After a moment's thought, Qiao Ze replied, "Maybe Dou Dou filtered out the information."
To finish his doctoral thesis as soon as possible, Qiao Ze had set a rather broad information filtering rule for Dou Dou. Almost everything except topic-related content was filtered out, including internal emails.
The question of whether the Qunzhi Project could win an award indeed had no connection with his doctoral thesis.
The application projects of the Xilin Institute of Mathematics are currently all centered around the application of artificial intelligence.
Primarily because there aren't many hands on deck.
Including Xu Changshu who transferred from Yanbei, the visiting researcher Liu Chenfeng, and Hanna who does odd jobs, all are mainly doing theoretical research work.
Only the director Li Jian Gao and Tan Jingrong are coordinating with thousands of engineers from outside to extend the application project of Group Wisdom, and currently, the main task is to fine-tune the grand language model of Group Wisdom.
As for the photolithography machine project led by the Optoelectronics Institute, there hasn't been much going on lately. The early design work has been essentially completed, and the results of computer simulations look good. The next step is to wait until the engineering progress reaches a certain stage before formally commencing testing, which will reveal more issues.
There has been no response yet as to whether they agree to change the unmanned aerial vehicle system to the Deep Sea Shadow system, as requested for project cooperation with the Beijiang NLP R&D Center.
Now that the thesis is also completed, Qiao Ze suddenly realizes that, if he's not in a hurry to work on the gravitational part of the Grand Unification topic, he could actually take a break, but that's after the doctoral thesis defense.
As for Chen Yiwen's little schemes...
"Eh? That God Qiao..."
"What's all this 'this and that'? I'm telling you Chen Yi, have you lost your mind? Qiao's, um, that means his name will be on the list when it's submitted, so just relax. Afterall, you were one of the pioneers in the Qunzhi Project Team and did make a little bit of contribution, despite having left. You're not dead, right, Qiao?"
"More or less..." Qiao Ze responded.
"Cough cough, God Qiao is generous, and so is the boss lady."
The dim lights of the university shone on Chen Yiwen's face, illuminating his youthful features with excited radiance.
That's the good life, being able to keep bragging about being awesome.
The Group Wisdom project has nothing to do with the school.
Qiao Ze is the project leader, and Su Mucheng is the sole investor. Both agreeing to add his name to the project team's list is more than enough.
Even if the Group Wisdom project were led by the college, Xu Dajiang wouldn't be meddling with the team's composition.
He doesn't have the time or inclination to care about these things right now.
Lately, he's been so busy preparing for Qiao Ze's doctoral thesis defense that he hardly has time to touch the ground.
Normally, all universities have set dates for doctoral thesis defenses, but Qiao Ze is obviously an exception, going down a special route.
Of course, the entire defense method is also different from the standard doctoral thesis defense.
The doctoral thesis defense at Xilin University of Technology has Forms A and B.
But now, to make this defense run smoothly, they've introduced Form C. The whole process is completely different from the regular doctoral thesis defense.
It's almost like a report meeting style defense.
Especially the invitations to the defense panel.
Normally, six or seven members for a doctoral defense panel is enough, with five professors from inside the university and two from outside.
But after the invitations for this defense were sent out, too many professors hoped to join the committee.
After all, joining would mean getting their hands on Qiao Ze's original doctoral thesis.
Xu Dajiang had originally only planned to invite fifty people.
That would be the total from both domestic and international invitations.
But now, just the number of domestic professors who want to attend the defense has already exceeded expectations.
The number of international academics confirmed to attend has also been increasing these past few days.
It feels like a painful yet joyful experience to him.
This time, it's not a large-scale report meeting like last time, and it's not possible to mobilize the entire city of Xilin like before.