Parece que pode ser "Crystal Nights" de Greg Egan.
Daniel Cliff is a rich businessman who's purchased rights to someone's private invention - a tiny optical computer that works better than buildings full of conventional ones.
He's going to run a simulation in it of a microcosmic universe - a world called Sapphire & its moon, local evolution of life, & a handle to our physical universe via a "monolith" placed on their moon (remember Clarke's "2001 A Space Odyssey"?) once they evolve enough to reach their moon. This monolith is actually a control panel for actual equipment in a physics lab in our world.
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