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Civilization. Today,
technology enables us to create liquidity.
Tomorrow, technology will enable us to create
new frontiers for human existence.
Technology has never belonged to any single era. It has
always been the driving force behind the advancement of
human civilization. From the Bronze Age to artificial
intelligence, from ancient kilns to digital finance, from
handcrafted jade to reusable rockets, what truly connects
our past, present, and future is not any single invention—it
is technology itself.
On June 24, 2026, an ordinary Wednesday
became an extraordinary day for me.
Sitting in the offices of Universal Ancient Jade Pavilion
(UAJP)
at Rockefeller Center in New York, I
watched
an internationally renowned materials scientist conduct
scientific examinations on an ancient porcelain object and a
jade artifact.
As I filmed the process and listened to the explanations,
I witnessed, perhaps for the first time so vividly, how
modern science can decode the “DNA” of ancient artifacts.
The word DNA here is, of course, metaphorical. It refers not
to biological DNA, but to the materials, microstructures,
natural weathering processes, and the chemical and physical
signatures accumulated over hundreds or even thousands of
years.
Through electron microscopy, spectroscopy, materials
analysis, a
nd other advanced scientific methods, researchers are now
reading information that has remained silent for millennia,
allowing these ancient objects to speak again.
Let the objects speak.
Let history be proven through the objects themselves.
History is no longer preserved only in written records.
History can now be demonstrated through science.
As I watched the scientific process unfold, slogans that had
accompanied my generation suddenly came rushing back into my
mind:
“Science and Technology Will Save the Nation.”
“Science and Technology Will Revitalize China.”
“Science and Technology Creates Wealth.”
Today, I believe another phrase deserves to be added:
Science and Technology Decode Civilization.
Technology does not merely create the future.
It also allows us to understand our past.
Dr. Jeff Ye, founder and chairman of UAJP, is an
unusual combination of scientist, entrepreneur, and
collector.
With academic training in chemistry and environmental
science, together with a Doctor of Business Administration
from Peking University, he has spent more than two decades
building one of the world’s significant private collections
of Chinese ancient art.
Throughout that journey, he has held one conviction: Chinese ancient art
is not merely cultural heritage
—it is the technological achievement of its own age.
Every bronze vessel embodies ancient metallurgical
innovation.
Every jade carving reflects extraordinary precision
engineering.
Every porcelain masterpiece reveals sophisticated knowledge
of mineral chemistry, kiln temperature, firing atmosphere,
and materials control.
These masterpieces are, in themselves, technological
achievements.
Today, modern materials science has become the key to
understanding them once again.
Advanced analytical technologies help decode the “DNA” of
these artifacts, verifying their materials, structures, and
natural aging processes, thereby establishing a
scientifically credible foundation for cultural assets.
For digital finance, this foundation is indispensable.
Blockchain can innovate.
Real World Assets (RWA) can innovate.
Tokens can innovate.
NFTs can innovate.
But none of these innovations matter without one essential
prerequisite:
Trust.
Technology establishes more than scientific authenticity.
It establishes the trust upon which capital markets depend.
Only when real-world assets can withstand rigorous
scientific validation can they truly enter digital capital
markets, acquire global liquidity, and begin a new life in
the modern financial system.
Standing inside Rockefeller Center, my thoughts turned to
two other visionaries.
One is Viru, a financial innovator at ANDX and
a distinguished graduate of the Wharton School, Elon Musk’s
alma mater.
His challenge is to build the technological infrastructure
that connects blockchain, smart contracts, and Real World
Assets, allowing cultural treasures that have remained
dormant for thousands of years to participate in global
capital markets and giving history, perhaps for the first
time, genuine financial liquidity.
Financial technology is changing far more than the way
transactions occur.
It is redefining how assets themselves exist.
The other visionary is Elon Musk.
His question is even more ambitious:
How can technology enable humanity to build
its next home beyond Earth?
Space exploration is not romantic imagination.
It is the ultimate integration of human engineering.
Propulsion systems.
Combustion science.
Materials engineering.
Structural design.
Orbital mechanics.
Navigation.
Thermal protection.
Life-support systems.
Precision software.
Every successful launch and every successful landing
represent the combined achievements of countless
technological disciplines.
SpaceX has transformed the economics of space not simply by
building rockets, but by pioneering reusable launch systems
and continuous engineering innovation, making the dream of a
multi planetary civilization increasingly achievable.
Perhaps this subject resonates so deeply with me
because of my own family.
My husband graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) in Aerospace Engineering before joining
Wall Street during the early 1990s as one of the generation
known as “Rocket Scientists.”
On Wall Street, a “Rocket Scientist” was not someone who
literally built rockets, but someone who brought aerospace
engineering, mathematics, physics, and computational science
into financial markets, developing sophisticated
quantitative models for pricing, risk management, and
financial innovation.
From rocket trajectories to capital markets, the application
changed.
The scientific mindset remained exactly the same.
It has gradually become clear to me that aerospace
engineering, digital finance, and Chinese ancient art appear
to belong to entirely different worlds.
In reality, they are all driven by the same force:
Technology.
Dr. Jeff Ye seeks to use modern materials science to decode
evidence left behind by five thousand years of civilization.
Viru seeks to redefine the value of real-world assets
through financial technology.
Elon Musk seeks to redefine the future boundaries of human
civilization through aerospace engineering.
Three people.
Three disciplines.
Three visions.
Yet they are all pursuing the same answer.
Technology.
UAJP, ANDX, and SpaceX represent the past, the present, and
the future.
Yet what truly unites them is not their industries.
It is technology.
Technology created bronze.
Technology fired porcelain.
Technology carved jade.
Technology decodes the “DNA” of ancient artifacts.
Technology verifies the evidence preserved by history.
Technology creates digital finance.
Technology gives cultural assets global liquidity.
Technology carries rockets toward the stars.
Technology unlocks the past.
Technology builds the present.
Technology opens the future.
Five thousand years ago, humanity used technology to create
civilization.
Today, humanity uses technology to connect civilization with
capital.
Tomorrow, humanity will continue relying on technology to
carry civilization farther into the universe.
Perhaps humanity has always been searching for the answers
to the same three questions:
Who are we?
Where do we come from?
Where are we going?
Technology is the bridge that connects those three
questions.
Every great civilization is ultimately defined by three
things:
The technologies it creates.
The history it preserves.
And the future it dares to build.
Every great civilization is ultimately defined by the
technologies it creates, the history it preserves, and the
future it dares to build. |