AMD Lands R&D Deal for Classroom Computers in China

Microprocessor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. of Sunnyvale, California has announced that a large research and development deal is pending with Beijing's China Basic Education Software Company. Under the deal's provisions, AMD will develop plans for classroom computers in Mainland China. Recently, the Chinese government's Ministry of Education mandated that all of China's schools must be connected to the Chinese national academic network, the China Education and Research Network, by no later than the year 2010. As part of the package, AMD will develop plans for student and teacher computers and classroom servers. Nationally, China has 680,000 schools, 4.4 million classrooms, 10 million teachers, and some 215 million students. It has not yet been determined whether the global Internet will be included as a feature on all of the computers to be supplied. The government of China has approved global Internet use for education and business purposes, but has banned the Internet for any type of political discussions or dissemination of news that is deemed `political' in content. Chinese regulators must first approve the AMD-China Basic Education Software Co. deal.