Chinese firms join OpenPOWER alliance

Manufacturers to get access to IBM technology for producing chips

Six Chinese companies joined on Friday the OpenPOWER consortium - a development alliance based around International Business Machines Corp's microprocessor architecture - to build designed-in-China processors.

The manufacturers will get access to IBM's latest chip-making technology and produce their own first chips next year. IBM is seeking to boost profit in China, the world's top technology spender. The company unveiled the OpenPOWER initiative, in which Google Inc is a founding member, in August.