Supercomputing-Japan: a competitive assessment

Japanese supercomputers (e.g. Hitac S-3800, NEC SX-3R, Fujitsu VP2000) are described and compared with US machines. The Japanese approach has been to develop high-speed single processor systems with vector processing functions which are driven by the fastest technologies. Ease of programming and of use are taken into account. The result has been first-rate applications for supercomputers, but software, in general, lags behind that of the US. Academic access to supercomputers is also behind that in the US. The ambitious Real-World Computing Program (RWC), a 10-year Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) program with a budget of about 60 billion yen (almost US $500 million), focuses on R&D for what is called flexible or intuitive information processing-the way human beings absorb information and make decisions