Touchscreen computing device costing just £23 to be rolled out first to 110 million schoolchildren

This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

India has developed the world's cheapest laptop – a touchscreen device which resembles Apple's wildly popular iPad but will cost just £23.

The prototype was unveiled today by Kapil Sibal, the country's human resource development minister, who said 110 million Indian schoolchildren would be the first recipients.

Then, from next year, the device – designed to bridge the digital divide and boost India's economy – will become available to students in higher education.

Sibal said: "The solutions for tomorrow will emerge from India. We have reached a stage that today, the motherboard, its chip, the processing, connectivity, all of them cumulatively cost around $35 [£23], including memory, display, everything."

Past low-cost technologies produced by the country include the £1,450 Tata Nano car and a mobile phone costing less than £11. The iPad retails at about £429 in the UK – 18 times the cost of the Indian laptop.

The tablet computer, developed by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and the Indian Institute of Science in Bengalooru, will eventually be made available to the public. It will run on an open source Linux operating system with Open Office software and can be powered by solar panel or batteries as well as mains electricity. It will have no hard drive but users will have access to a USB port, 2GB of memory and a video-conferencing facility, internet browsing.

Sudhir Dixit, director of Hewlett-Packard's Indian research division, welcomed the announcement. He said: "This is a very strong move with good potential. Previous initiatives with these aims have had laptops priced at around $100, so it is a development.

"The interesting thing is that slate devices are expected to come into the market and cut into sales of laptops and netbooks. The predictions are that slate devices will do to netbooks and laptops what netbooks and laptops did to desktop PCs. It gives people mobility.

"Access to IT in the education system is growing very rapidly. Because of the government's great push forward in IT, every school will have computers and, at some stage, every person will have access to IT."

More than 62m PCs are expected to be sold in India this year and the figure is predicted to top 100m in 2013. The first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010 saw a 72% growth in netbook sales.

Dixit said: "This year the IT market has begun growing very rapidly after a slump last year."

The device forms part of the Indian government's commitment to an across-the-country satisfactory standard of education by 2010. According to 2001 census figures, literacy levels in India are at 63%, lagging behind most other developing nations, including China – where the figure is 93%. There are 60 million registered internet users in India, a country with a population of 1.2 billion.

Earlier this year HP Labs India announced a move to bring tens of millions of people online in the country, enabling users of low-end mobile phones to complete simple functions on websites.

The HP innovation could potentially open the customer market for small businesses from the 60 million registered internet users to the 600 million owners of mobile phones.