Intel Corporation, the world's largest chip-maker, has designed a low-cost community PC (personal computer) for launch in rural India by year-end, an Intel official said here Thursday.

Though the company is yet to announce the price, the community PC is expected to cost less than Rs.10,000 in the Indian rural market.

Aimed at the rural and farm community in the countryside, the PC is being tested at 10 sites across the country as a pilot project in the run-up to its commercial launch in December.

"We will provide the design to assemblers for building the PC with a better performance. Besides the regular features, the PC will also have wireless Internet access in rural and remote areas," Intel vice-president Patrick P. Gelsinger said at the Intel Developer Forum meet here.

About 1,500 engineers, developers and industry leaders from India and South Asia are participating in the two-day annual session being held in the Bangalore Palace grounds.

Since power supply in rural areas is erratic and suffers from voltage fluctuations, the Intel PC can run even on a car battery as its backup, he said.

The PC frame has been designed to make it dust-proof and insect-resistant in rural settings with special screens and filters. It has been built to withstand tropical heat in many parts of the country.

"Unlike the standard PCs that operate on 240 volts, the community PC has been designed to run on 80 volt power source. Its platform has been built to work on AC or DC line," Gelsinger said.

Intel designs chipsets that go into the making of a PC by OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) under a license agreement. The assemblers integrate the various devices with its chips and software to build the PC.

"We have enhanced the performance of some of the chips to enable such PCs to work even on low power sources like batteries and yet access the Internet through the wireless," Gelsinger said.

The rural PCs have been configured to seamlessly connect the Internet through Wi-Fi, Wimax GPS and GPRS. The computers will decide the network or connectivity on its own instead of the end-user.

Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) is a seamless medium to access the Internet on a short range, while PCs connected to the Wimax (wireless broadband) network can access computers over a range of 50 km.

The Indian subsidiary is in talks with the Uttaranchal and Karnataka governments to start pilot projects on Wimax in their respective states.

"We are building the wireless infrastructure so as to gear up for the community PC in the rural market whose potential remains to be tapped," said Intel South Asia marketing director Amar Babu.