Intel collaborates with French atomic energy lab on mobile technology

Intel signed a new agreement with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) to research future low-power mobile technologies.

This is not the first partnership between the two entities, CEA started working with Intel in the field of high-performance computing soon after it ceased its atmospheric and underground nuclear weapons test programs, as it turned to computer simulation to continue its weapons research.

That effort continues but this new deal will be a five-year collaboration with CEA's Laboratory for Electronics and Information Technology (LETI). The main focus will be security and electronics research and PC World reports the deal took a year to negotiate:

Both parties dodged questions about who will have the commercial rights to the fruits of their research, but each said it had protected its rights. The deal took a year to negotiate.

“It’s a balanced agreement,” said Stéphane Siebert, director of CEA Technology, the division of which LETI is a part.

Who owns what from the five-year research collaboration may become a thorny issue, for French taxpayers and Intel shareholders alike, as it will be many years before it becomes clear which technologies or patents are important.