The Crossing Number of C_8 x C_8

We prove cr(C_8 x C_8)=48. An explicit 48-crossing drawing gives the upper bound. For the lower bound, a hypothetical 47-crossing drawing is reduced to two weighted subcubic intersection graphs. Mesh inequalities and balanced cuts exclude every possible component structure. The accompanying artifact contains the explicit drawing and an exact-rational crossing checker. This manuscript was prepared by Qiyuan Gu with ChatGPT 5.6 Sol. It is not peer reviewed and makes no claim about the full Harary-Kainen-Schwenk conjecture.