MITI´s real world computing program

The Real World Computing (RWC) program (also called the New Information Processing Technology program), a 10-year program sponsored by Japan´s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), is described. The goal of the program is to lay the technological foundations for the information society that Japan anticipates in the next century. The RWC program replaces the Fifth Generation project. The author presents a summary of the draft prepared by the RWC program´s Feasibility Study Committee as presented in Tokyo, March 2-3, 1992, at what was called RWC92, the Second NIPT Workshop. MITI expects future information systems to be based on a flexible integration of massively parallel computing, optical computing, neural computing, and logic programming. The Real World Computing program aims to establish theoretical foundations for these technologies, explore applications, and study how they can be integrated.<>