Believing that von Neumann computers are now an endangered species , the Japanese have started to develop a knowledge - information processing system for the 1990 ' s . Japan ' s Fifth Generation Computer Systems

Until now, the Japanese computer industry has aimed at catching up with the US, especially IBM, in computer technology. The result is that three Japanese companies (Fujitsu, Hitachi, and NEC) now claim to offer equivalent computers that are faster than IBM's. In fact, the Japanese computer industry is presently setting its sights on surpassing the rest of the world,la and it sees as its opportunity the growing "technology gulf" between the traditional sequential, control-flow computer and intended application areas such as distributed computing, office automation, and artificial intelligence. All of this is creating the belief that the next generation of computers will have a different theoretical foundation from traditional computers.