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Intel to base convergence efforts in Asia-Pacific

South Korea joins the crew

Intel chief Craig Barrett rounded off his trip to the Far East last week by promising that the company will set up an R&D centre in South Korea.

That's in addition to the R&D facility it's planning to establish in Taiwan, announced exactly a week ago, and the joint R&D project it's partnering with Chinese PC maker Legend on, also announced last week.

The South Korean centre will specialise in wireless networking for the home, and processor technology for consumer electronics and wireless systems, local government officials said, according to the Korea Herald. Wireless is also one of the Taiwanese centre's areas of specialisation, while building links between consumer electronics and PCs via WLANs is the core role of the Legend initiative.

In each case, there's a clear focus on the convergence of computing and consumer electronics in the home, with the Internet and wireless networking providing the glue that binds these systems together.

That concept has been a keynote of Barrett's visit to the region, which not only contributes around 40 per cent of Intel's revenue but manufacturers almost all of the electronic goods that end up in the world's homes.

So far the South Korea centre exists solely as a concept - details are expected to be finalised in October, the paper said. Apparently, South Korea's President Roh asked Intel to establish a research center in Korea when he visited the US in May, so the details to be worked out will undoubtedly focus in part on how much the South Korean government will subsidise the centre. ®

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