Taiwan's Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦) has been chosen as the original design manufacturer (ODM) for the ambitious US$100 laptop project called "One Laptop per Child (OLPC)," according to a news release posted on the Web site of the Delaware-based, non-profit organization under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Media Lab.
The decision was made yesterday after the OLPC's board of directors reviewed bids from several possible manufacturing companies, the statement read. The local media had earlier reported that the organization negotiated with Quanta, Compal Computer Inc (
The initiative to develop a US$100 laptop in a bid to revolutionize global education for children was first announced by Nicholas Negroponte, Media Lab chairman and co-founder, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January.
"Any previous doubt that a very-low-cost laptop could be made for education in the developing world has just gone away," Negroponte said in the statement.
Quanta has already signed the contract with the US organization, company spokesman Tim Li (
However, since the whole project is still in the initial stage with a few technological issues that have to be resolved, such as model specifications, it is difficult to predict the exact time and quantity for mass production, Li said.
But OLPC said in the statement that Quanta has agreed to devote a significant part of Quanta Research Institute's engineering resources in the first half of next year, with a target of bringing the product to market in the fourth quarter of next year, the statement said.
Li said Quanta can benefit from the project by reinventing cost-saving production through the sharing of research and development resources with other leading global companies such as central processing unit maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc and other panel makers, which will ultimately be advantageous to their clients.
The project would not be a money-losing business that could impact the company's margin and profitability, as Quanta is a profitable organization and knows its responsibility to its shareholders, he added.
According to OLPC, the 5 million to 15 million laptops will be launched in seven culturally diverse countries, namely, China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria and Thailand.
The organization will allocate one million units in each of these countries, with an additional modest allocation of machines to seed developer communities in a number of other selected countries. A commercial version of the machine will be explored in parallel, it said in the statement.
The laptops will be sold to governments and issued to children by schools on the basis of one laptop per child. These machines will be rugged, Linux-based, and so energy-efficient that hand-cranking alone can generate sufficient power for operation, it said.
RECYCLE: Taiwan would aid manufacturers in refining rare earths from discarded appliances, which would fit the nation’s circular economy goals, minister Kung said Taiwan would work with the US and Japan on a proposed cooperation initiative in response to Beijing’s newly announced rare earth export curbs, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. China last week announced new restrictions requiring companies to obtain export licenses if their products contain more than 0.1 percent of Chinese-origin rare earths by value. US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday responded by saying that Beijing was “unreliable” in its rare earths exports, adding that the US would “neither be commanded, nor controlled” by China, several media outlets reported. Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato yesterday also
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) said it expects peak season effects in the fourth quarter to continue to boost demand for passenger flights and cargo services, after reporting its second-highest-ever September sales on Monday. The carrier said it posted NT$15.88 billion (US$517 million) in consolidated sales last month, trailing only September last year’s NT$16.01 billion. Last month, CAL generated NT$8.77 billion from its passenger flights and NT$5.37 billion from cargo services, it said. In the first nine months of this year, the carrier posted NT$154.93 billion in cumulative sales, up 2.62 percent from a year earlier, marking the second-highest level for the January-September
‘DRAMATIC AND POSITIVE’: AI growth would be better than it previously forecast and would stay robust even if the Chinese market became inaccessible for customers, it said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its full-year revenue growth outlook after posting record profit for last quarter, despite growing market concern about an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble. The company said it expects revenue to expand about 35 percent year-on-year, driven mainly by faster-than-expected demand for leading-edge chips for AI applications. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker in July projected that revenue this year would expand about 30 percent in US dollar terms. The company also slightly hiked its capital expenditure for this year to US$40 billion to US$42 billion, compared with US$38 billion to US$42 billion it set previously. “AI demand actually
Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. Huang visited TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona and joined the Taiwanese chipmaker’s executives to witness the efforts to “build the infrastructure that powers the world’s AI factories, right here in America,” Nvidia said in a statement. At the event, Huang joined Y.L. Wang (王英郎), vice president of operations at TSMC, in signing their names on the Blackwell wafer to
RSS