It wasn’t that long ago that Intel viewed the OLPC’s XO as competing with its own Classmate PC. As we all know, however, time heals all wounds and Intel eventually decided to bury the hatchet with the OLPC team, contributing funds and joining the project’s board. As philanthropically motivated as Intel’s move may have been, it looks like the company is looking to get a little something in return; namely, it wants to see an Intel chip in the XO. “Intel, like a lot of other people, is more than welcome to try to design great silicon for this project and this mission, and we’ve been working with them to help them do exactly that,” Walter Bender, OLPC’s president, was quoted as saying.

While current versions of the XO run an AMD Geode LX-700, some have criticized the machine for its aging x86 architecture. Intel could certainly provide a more powerful chip but AMD doesn’t seem too worried–the company cites the Geode’s performance per watt and its ability to run without a fan as two factors that make it ideal for the XO. Furthermore, AMD claims that “the whole device would need to be redesigned” in order to accommodate a new chip. That makes it seem like the AMD Geode is safe for now, all bets are off when it comes to the next-generation of the XO.

For more on the brewing battle:
– see this Ars Technica article