Thunderbolt due to strike Windows PCs in 2012

Thunderbolt, Intel's high-speed communications protocol, is coming to Windows PCs in 2012.

Acer and Asus should bring out Windows devices — including Ultrabooks — that support the high-speed interconnect technology next year, Mooly Eden, Intel's general manager of PC client devices, told attendees at the Intel Developer Forum on Wednesday.

Thunderbolt is a technology developed by Intel under the codename Light Peak that allows for the dual bi-directional transfer of data over copper cable at 10Gbps per channel. Thunderbolt was announced in February and the first devices it appeared in were Apple's MacBook Pros.

Mooly demonstrated a Windows PC connecting to a set of Intel SSDs via Thunderbolt. This allowed it to concurrently stream four uncompressed videos at around 700MBps.