Well, can’t say that I saw this one coming. Rising from the ashes like a Phoenix, Intel’s Classmate PC has reemerged and could ship to as many as 1 million Chinese students next year. After months of silence and Intel’s announcement that it was joining the OLPC board, most of us assumed that the Classmate PC project had been abandoned, in favor of the OLPC’s XO. Apparently, that wasn’t the case: China’s Commercial Times reports that Intel is speaking directly with the Chinese government, in the hopes of selling them on the Classmate PC for use in classrooms across the nation. Given the XO’s recent pricebump–to $188–the Classmate PC is now looking a whole lot more competitive at $225. The only question that remains? Can Intel directly compete with the OLPC project while simultaneously supporting them financially in the hopes of landing an Intel chip in the next version of the XO? Just watch them.

For more on this story:
– see this Ars Technica article