China will draft a national standard for computer security chips and use them on computer main boards, in another attempts at building the country's own standard system, said an industrial source on Friday.

David Wei, a research director with the Research Academy of Legend Group Ltd, said his company had been appointed by the Chinese Government as the organization responsible for the formulation of the country's personal computer security chip standard. The first draft is expected later this year.

The chips are expected to be used on computer main boards and provide higher levels of security over current software information security measures like anti-virus software and firewalls.

"We are talking to many companies in the industry to form an alliance first to discuss the draft and promote the standardization process," said Wei yesterday on the sideline of the IDC Asia-Pacific Security Vision 2004 in Beijing.

He said Legend, the biggest Chinese computer maker, will manufacture trial chips in the second half of the year.

Wei believes that in 2006, about 60 percent of personal computers will run main boards with security chips and the proportion in China will be similar, so security chips will become a huge market and Chinese companies should take the opportunity to enhance their competitiveness in formulating industrial standards.

In addition to market opportunities, China should also better protect its information security with a domestic standard. China has been working on its own standards to boost the competitiveness of domestic industries and protect national security. Examples include the TD-SCDMA standard for third generation mobile communications.

Wu Lianfeng, director of the cross product team of US-based information technology market research house International Data Corporation (IDC), also pointed out security hardware products will penetrate into every corner of information security in the future. IDC estimates that in 2007, more than 80 percent of security products will be hardware-based, instead of current software-based tools like anti-virus and firewall software.

(China Daily March 6, 2004)