Affordable PC Dragon Dreams To Become a Reality: China's 1st Domestic 64-bit CPU
Finally China will make use of its homegrown CPU chip (Central Processing Unit), Godsen II, to build Dragon Dreams, affordable computers at 1,000yuan ($125).
After testing Godsen I and Godsen II for severals years, the Godsen II chip is equivalent to Pentium III and will be China's first 64-bit high-performance processor. Godsen II also supports Linux (yea!) and Windows X operating systems. Tax-control and server machines made by domestic companies have already started using the Godsen II chip since last year.
People may wonder why China would create another processor when there is already is Pentium III and Intel. This goes back to patents issues and is reminiscent of the reactions in early March when China highly encouraged the use of homegrown codec AVS instead of using MPEG-4 and H.264. Therefore not only is this China's first 64-bit unit, but Godsen II is China's first wholly owned intellectual property rights for a CPU chip, therefore their Dragon Dream PCS will not be held to US patent royalties. Get it? Ahhhh yes anti-US imperialism working its ways! That is why the development of Godsen II was funded heavily by various sectors, from government agencies, universities to private companies.
Now UN's Kofi Annan at the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) can contact China to roll those $100 computers out. Others have already noted how this affordable computer can now be used by the poor. Back in May 2005 the Director of Godsen II, Li Guojie, said that this will "enable 800 million Chinese peasants to afford PCs." So let's start working on rural education and development to make this quote come true. With recent funding directions announced at the China Development Forum 2006 and by the Premier, Wen Jiaoba, at the National People's Congress, it seems like we are at least heading in the right direction. The question is if Chinese peasants can afford these new PC's, what kind of information will they have access to online? In a top-down surveillanced world, these affordable PC's could be pre-built with monitoring devices that will track peasant's usage and control what websites can be accessed. Scary! The future of political activism may look like peasants learning how to hack into these Dragon Dream PC's to get around firewalls.
UPDATE: Dragon PC is already on trial and may be produced on a small scale by June.
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