Japan's Growing Technological Capability Implications for the U.S. Economy (1992) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Technology Assessment in the U.S.-Japan Context
Technology Assessment in the U.S.-Japan Context
Pages 21-41
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From page 21... ...
Much of the success of the Japanese can be traced to their investment in technology, long-range view of return on investment, leverage strategy of market penetration, and just plain hard work. Their products were not magic; in fact, most if not all of the early technology in those products originated in the United States.
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From page 22... ...
One of the surprising comments made to me by a Japanese colleague back in 1984 when I started the Japanese assessment program called JTEC, was "It is time that you Americans are starting to pay attention to what we are doing. We have been following your work for some time now, but you don't even pay attention to our technical journals published in English." Just how interested the Japanese are in foreign technology is illustrated in Table 1.
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From page 23... ...
The requests for this type of foreign technology information come from many sources. Let me give you a typical example.
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From page 24... ...
program was born. Commerce initiated an interagency effort to assess and evaluate Japanese technology on a continuing basis.
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A sample chart is shown in Table 2. This summarizes the assessment carried out recently by the advanced computing panel.
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Panelists are not to deal with broader political or economic issues that they have views on, because they may lack experience or have strong biases. What is desired is a solid technical assessment backed by firsthand knowledge.
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From page 27... ...
Fifth Generation project, for example, is considered by many to be a disappointment, although I personally feel that while it did not achieve all its goals and some predictions did not come to pass, it did teach the Japanese many things that are critical to the next phase of advanced computing.
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From page 28... ...
Most of these lists have many common themes and, not surprisingly, include most topics that were studied by the JTEC teams. Table 3 lists and compares the JTEC studies with both the National and DOD critical technologies lists.
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From page 29... ...
Advanced Computing (1987, 1990) Machine Translation (1991)
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Advanced Computing (1987, 1990) Database Systems (1991)
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From page 31... ...
Unfortunately, the more caveats cited, the less persuasive the argument. Nevertheless, it is necessary to synthesize data and to present it in such a form that policymakers and the nontechnical community can easily understand the importance of the findings and their implications.
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From page 32... ...
32 JAPAN'S GROWING TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITY TABLE 4 Japanese Strengths and Weaknesses Japanese Position Technology Strong Competitive Weak MATERIALS Carbon-fiber Products R&D Carbon-carbon composites Basic research R&D, manufacturing High-strength R&D, products Basic research polymers Electronic (Si and Products R&D II-VI materials GaAs) Biopolymers Superconductors Processing R&D ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES Microelectronics Memory chips Logic chips Lithography Optical and X-ray Displays Machine translation Products Products R&D Data bases All processes (but gaining)
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From page 33... ...
technology. After all, MITI's original charter was to look for and transfer foreign technology.
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From page 34... ...
A1though sometimes gaining consensus is time consuming, once the Japanese decide to do something, they move rapidly, and without further discussion. One of the most interesting aspects of Japanese technology is that technology is of signal importance to the government.
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From page 35... ...
Japanese research and development activities remain rock steady: total spending continues to rise healthily, and spending patterns show little change from an overview perspective. However, on closer examination, it is clear that those responsible for Japan's science and technology policies are actively wrestling with the conflicting requirements of budget pressures and increasing calls for Japan to contribute more to the world's stock of basic scientific knowledge.
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From page 36... ...
Unlike the RCA Laboratories, which supported the early work but did not recognize the full potential for over 20 years, the Japanese continued to research and develop liquid crystals, and now plan to make them the centerstone for a multibillion dollar business. In contrast to the many examples of technology going to Japan, over the last 10 years a new trend started to emerge Japanese technology coming to the United States.
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From page 37... ...
JOINT VENTURES While there is a thin line between some partnerships and licensing agreements, I want to concentrate here on partnerships and to discuss licensing next. Partnerships have become an important way of doing business in recent years.
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From page 38... ...
Mitsubishi is willing to license its technology in return for banking on AT&T's enormous distribution network in the United States and Europe, thus improving its worldwide market share in semiconductors.~° While there certainly is a movement in Japan to start sharing technology, many more activities focus on joint ventures for cooperative R&D. A call for joint development of the next generation of computers, the so-called Sixth Generation or Real World Computing project, is an example of possible future trends.
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From page 39... ...
On several occasions, however, the panel received letters after the visit asking that certain technology not be included in the report due to its proprietary nature. The chairman of the JTEC study on Computer-Integrated Manufacturing and Computer-Aided Design in the Semiconductor Industry, William Holton of the Semiconductor Research Corporation, told me after his trip to Japan that he was surprised by the openness of the Japanese industrial labs, which in some cases were more forthcoming than the American companies he works for.
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From page 40... ...
Recent JTEC teams have noted that not only has university research steadily improved, but even more significantly, Japanese industry is paying more attention to what is going on at universities. The Japanese government has recognized the existence of barriers between university and industrial research, and has not only started to remove them, but has instituted a number of programs to encourage cooperative research.
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From page 41... ...
Although written by over 120 scientists and engineers from all walks of life, the JTEC studies convey an overall impression of Japanese research and development that is scarcely subject to misinterpretation: Japan is currently engaged in a systematic effort to achieve parity with, or superiority over, the United States in virtually every technology that is of current or potential economic significance. It is not unlike that of U.S.
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