"With China becoming one of the world's biggest IT manufacturing bases, the ownership of Chinese-owned IPR is crucial in China's march towards being an IT powerhouse," said Chen Chong, deputy director-general of the Department of Electronics and IT Products with the Ministry of Information Industry.

The Godson Alliance, based on the first Chinese-invented central processing unit (CPU) Godson, was founded yesterday in Beijing with an aim to form China's first industrial chain from CPU to computers, servers, network routers and operating systems (OSs) as well as software applications.

The initial members of the alliance include the inventor of Godson, the Institute of Computing Technology (ICT) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, electronic appliance giant Haier Corporation, the Great Wall Computer Software and Systems Inc Ltd, China Software and Service Co Ltd, the Linux OS provider Red Flag Software Co. Ltd. and the high-performance computer firm Dawning Information Industry Co Ltd.

Alliance will focus on the application of Godson CPU and related applications in electronic-government, financial sector, industrial automatic control, telecommunications, handheld devices and information electronics in its initial stages.

"Network computer (NC) is the major product we are going to promote in the coming months," said Fan Jianping, deputy director of ICT and vice-chairman of the IT team-up.

The NC product, which requires less clock speed and hardware configuration, but higher network security than personal computers, will be made by Haier, which has won three contracts from two schools and one government department of the Beijing Municipality.

Dawning Information Industry Co Ltd, one of the biggest domestic computer server manufacturers in China, also released motherboards and servers based on Godson processors and designed the first cluster server with more than 180 such CPUs.

According to Fan Jianping, the alliance aims to attract 100 members from all industries and release 100 products based on Godson processors such as NC, personal digital assistance, and handheld devices.

It was revealed that the combined company aims to sell 1 million such products within two years.

The Godson Alliance has established a 6,000 square-meter open laboratory in Beijing and will spend millions of dollars to support members conducting research on Godson CPU.

The Godson CPU, with a clock speed as fast as 2.66 megahertz and power consumption of 0.4 watts at 2 megahertz speed, is thought by Li Guojie, director of ICT and chairman of Godson alliance, to be able to handle most of the work of industrial users.

(China Daily December 24, 2002)