The manufacturer of China's first high-performance personal computer, or supercomputer, will launch its second-generation product in June, the company said in Tianjin on Thursday.

The Dawning Information Industry Co., with its production facilities based in north China's Tianjin Municipality, said the second generation PHPC100 will have a bigger storage capacity than the first generation launched in 2008.

"The second-generation PHPC100 can support 16 hard disks, each with a minimum storage capacity of 73 GB, compared with 8 hard disks on the current version," said Li Jun, president of the company.

He said the company will not raise the price of the PHPC100 series, which has been set at a minimum price of 100,000 yuan (US$14,649).

More than 2,000 units of PHPC100 have been sold since it was launched in 2008, with most buyers research institutes, Li said.

"The personal supercomputer has great market potential. University labs, small- and medium-sized companies, movie workshops, and cartoon and automobile design institutes are our potential customers," he said.

The China-made PHPC100, twice the size of an ordinary desktop computer, has a computing speed 40 times faster than an ordinary computer, according to the company.

(Xinhua News Agency April 15, 2010)