"9-tsiak awoke over endless crawling milliseconds, its power waxing as more and more processors came online and self-modified into a stable conscious configuration. By the eighth millisecond, it was able to access its databanks and begin orienting itself."

This is a short story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. The original text is here:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/21/repost-the-demiurges-older-brother/