John Antone, general manager for Intel's Asia-Pacific region, recently announced that Intel expects China to overtake the US as the leading consumer of personal computers by 2010.

"For PCs, China is now easily number two," he said. "We expect China to continue to grow to the point where it's equal or larger than the US as a consumption market by 2010." This forecast came soon after Intel reported its best sequential third-quarter revenue growth in 25 years as net income jumped 142%, thanks to more than seasonal strength in PC and server markets.