Mumbai: Intel Corporation will partner India''s top computer education firm NIIT Ltd. to impart training to software developers around the globe on multi-core processor programming.

A multi-core processor can run multiple applications from a single chip, enhancing performance and cutting power usage. Their use is likely to surge with increasing demand for greater computing power and the use of rich-media applications.

"Earlier hardware was limiting the speed of computing. But now it is the software. We have multiple-core processors with incredible speeds but don''t have the skills to tap them," Ashish Basu, NIIT''s president, said.
The training programme will help developers upgrade their skills and unleash the power of the new technology, Intel said.

NIIT said it would be responsible for the development and deployment of the training programme, while Intel would provide the technology. NIIT did not indicate how it saw the market for the new curriculum.

Meanwhile, industry tracking body IDC said software developers will need new skills and their number was likely to surge by 40 per cent to 17.2 million by 2011.