Greetings from the New President

Taizo Nishimuro
President
Real World Computing Partnership

As the successor of Mr. Tsutomu Kanai, chairman of the board, Hitachi Limited, I have been appointed as president of the Real World Computing Partnership. As the newly appointed leader of the RWCP, I hope you will extend to me the same cooperation and understanding as you provided to the former president.

The society and economy of our country are now suffering the longest recession on record. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new markets, stimulate demand, and revitalize industry. To this end, streamlining of management and technological innovation for further infrastructure development, including the proliferation of advanced information and communication systems through PC network, is essential. I confirmed my determination to do my best toward this goal as president of the Real World Computing Partnership, promoting a national project.

Since its inception in July 1992, this partnership has been promoting the Real World Computing Project, a 10-year project aimed at creating an innovative information technology system that can process various types of real-world information in their original forms, under the guidance of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

During the first five years from 1992 to 1996, basic and explorative research and development was carried out in major fields of "Fundamental Information Technology of the Next Generation" under the overall theme of "Flexible Information Processing." Those efforts have produced successful results.

In the second phase starting in 1997, we are building on the results of the first half and concentrating our research resources on the two fields of real world intelligence technology and parallel and distributed computing technology, in a bid to materialize the "Fundamental Information Technology of the Next Generation. "

For the purpose, we have established a global joint research initiative consisting of 20 member organizations, including four overseas partners, thus bringing about cooperation among industry, academia, and the government. Additionally, we have close relationship with the Electrotechnical Laboratory of MITI, a leading research organization in the field of advanced electronic and information processing technology.

This year marks the eighth year of the Real World Computing Project, and the results will be reviewed in depth; an interim evaluation of the project's second phase is also scheduled this year. The project has already produced some notable outcomes.

Research results that have attracted particular attention are a high-speed parallel processing system based on the clustering technology of high-performance PCs and a protein information analysis system applied by the PC cluster technology in our Parallel and Distributed Computing Technology field. Another major fruit has been a PC interaction system that has intuitive and natural interfaces such as speech, facial expressions, and gestures in our Real World Intelligence Technology field. These systems have been highly evaluated both in Japan and abroad, following their introduction and demonstration at international conferences and scientific meetings for the first time.

Some of these research and development results will make great contributions to the development of science and technology as well as the information society in the 21st century. Also, they will help boost the Japanese economy and society.

The Real World Computing Partnership will make the utmost effort during the remainder of the term in order to make the project a great success. To this end, we would like to ask for your further support and cooperation.