Zhang Fuxin, general manager of Jiangsu Lemote Tech, has said the government plans to procure 1.5 million Loongson-based computers in order to support the home-grown CPUs. Loongson (also known as Dragon chip) is a family of general-purpose MIPS-compatible CPUs developed at the Institute of Computing Technology (ICT) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The chief architect is Professor Weiwu Hu.Jiangsu Province has already ordered 150,000 Loongson computers from Lemote Tech, added Zhang, who predicted that Loongson PCs will experience explosive growth in the next three years.
He said the firm’s Loongson business achieved a balanced budget in 2008 and expects to achieve profitability this year.
The firm will develop PC models that support the Windows OS next year, said Zhang, but added that the Loongson-based Windows PCs may not meet the minimum performance requirements for cutting edge games, which is a bit of a worry..
Alibaba.com states that reportedly the developer of the Loongson CPU has plans to set up an RMB1 billion joint venture for its computer processors.