Cuba is again making incursions into the production of computers with the assembly of its first 50,000 laptops and tablets this year for the national market. The Industrial Enterprise for Informatics, Communications and Electronics (Gedeme) announced a few days ago this project, which it has assumed in alliance with the Chinese company Haier.

The head of Gedeme’s Informatics Solutions Project, Fernando Fernández, reported to the press at the close of last week that 3,500 laptops and 3,583 tablets had already been assembled with Chinese technology, for their distribution in Cuba.

 

The components for the assembly of these GDM brand devices are contributed by the company Haier through agreements signed for technology transference, added Fernández. The Chinese firm also took care of the Cuban technicians’ training, which concluded last January 20.

 

The third entity participating in the programme is the University of Computer Sciences (UCI), whose specialists contribute the Nova Operation Systems for the laptops, and Novadriod for the tablets, as well as other applications and their production processes.

 

Gedeme, which is currently assembling 40 per cent of its business units’ technological equipment sent from China, will be responsible with a total payroll of 80 workers involved in the entire productive and marketing process of those means through the wholesale chains. Right now it is carrying out the production with 36 workers.

 

The new Cuban industry has capacity to assemble 120,000 units per year between Core i3, Celeron and Core 15 laptops, all sixth generation, and two models of tablets, 8 and 10 inches, the latter with accessories and a keyboard that allows it to be turned into a mini-laptop and manage capacities of up to a terabyte of information from an external drive.

 

“In the agreement, Haier would be in charge of supplying all the raw material for the first years of production in addition to the technology, that is, the production line, with a locale for the certification of tests and general guarantee,” said Fernández.

 

The inauguration of this factory last December forms part of the Cuban government’s will to continue expanding, to the extent of the financial possibilities, the safe computerisation of society, the Cuban News Agency reported.

 

Cuba built the first computer, the CID 201, in the 1970s, a line that disappeared in the 1990s.

 

The current production of laptops and tablets is part of the strategy to increase connectivity in the country through the opening since July 2015 of more than 1,000 WiFi public zones in parks and other spaces, in charge of the Cuban Telecommunications Company (ETECSA). (2017)