The number of Thunderbolt devices in the market will grow as the connector technology expands from Apple computers to Windows PCs, said Kirk Skaugen, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel's PC Client Group, at an event in San Francisco .

"We have 21 Thunderbolt devices in things like storage and displays in the marketplace. We have a hundred targeted by the end of the year, and hundreds of Thunderbolt devices targeted by the middle or end of next year," Skaugen said.

Thunderbolt, which was introduced more than a year ago, is a high-speed connector technology that moves data between computers and peripherals. Thunderbolt was co-developed by Apple and Intel and has data transfer speeds of up to 10Gbps (bits per second), which is faster than USB 3.0. Thunderbolt ports first appeared on Apple's Macintosh computers, but will also appear on new PCs from Lenovo, Asus and Acer later this year.

A number of storage devices from Matrox, Western Digital and Seagate are available with Thunderbolt ports. Apple also .

Skaugen's remarks came during an event announcing the new third-generation Core processors code-named Ivy Bridge. There will be a higher level of Thunderbolt integration in computers with the new Core processors, Skaugen said. The Z77 motherboard for the new Core processors includes an option of Thunderbolt data transfer lanes, which will help move data faster in and out of PCs.