As a result of a cabinet decision made in April 1992 entitled "General Guidelines for Scientific and Technological Policy", government expenditure for promoting science and technology has been substantially increased. This has happened despite the fact that the nation's economy has been suffering from a sustained recession. More specifically, the expenditure increased from 2,023 billion yen in the Fiscal Year 1992, to 2,267 billion yen in the Fiscal Year 1993 and then to 2,359 billion yen in the Fiscal Year 1994. In addition, 5 trillion yen was added as an amendment to the Fiscal Year 1993 budget to revitalize domestic purchasing power. Of this, 94.5 billion yen was earmarked for strengthening the "new societal infrastructure", which means the deployment of high-performance networks including a national backbone and local area networks, and the installation of basic research facilities including supercomputers.
Research and development into computer networks for scientific research started in 1973, supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of Monbusho. The project was supervised by the author and was conducted with the collaboration of the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University. The N-1 Network, which was based upon X.25 packet-switching protocol, was developed under the project, and in 1980 a network service with a speed of 64kb/s was inaugurated nationwide using NTT's public packet-switching service. Since 1986, when the National Center for Science Information Systems (NACSIS) was established, leased lines have been introduced to replace the public packet-switched network. Because of financial difficulties, nation-wide deployment of the leased-line network with a maximum speed of 512kb/s took 6 years. In 1992, when the network deployment completed, the TCP/IP protocol was introduced in addition to the X.25 packet-switching protocol. Since then the new service, named SINET, has been provided nation-wide and connected with the INTERNET by way of a leased international line with a speed of 512kb/s.
The budget amendment in Fiscal Year 1993 triggered the enhancement of network services. Local area networks with speeds of 100 Mb/s were installed in all national universities and state-run research institutes, and now more than 250 national and private universities have them. The NACSIS budget was increased by 700 million yen to interconnect them. This was achieved by installing ATM switches and frame relays in 29 locations covering the whole country. The budget increase in the Fiscal Year 1994 permitted the speed to be increased from 512kb/s to 6Mb/s, and the budget request for the Fiscal Year 1995 will permit a further increase to 50Mb/s. We hope this will continue so that all ATM switches will be connected by 156Mb/s lines within a few years.
To increase the information resources available for network services, NACSIS and the Japan Information Center for Science and Technology (JICST) will enhance their activities of constructing databases and providing services nationally as well as internationally. In following up the Fiscal Year 1993 budget amendment, NACSIS will soon inaugurate an electronic library service for research communities, providing full texts of core academic journals in the area of information, computer and communication technologies.
The Headquarters for the Promotion of Advanced Information and Communications Society was established in 1994, headed by Prime Minister Murayama, with the Ministers of Post and Telecommunications and of International Trade and Industry as deputy heads, and all the rest of cabinet ministers as members. The Headquarters has an advisory panel that consists of non-governmental members including the author, who have been meeting frequently for extensive discussions. The Science and Technology Council, also chaired by the Prime Minister, has a Policy Committee which recently issued a report aimed at enhancing the information infrastructure and strengthening inter-ministerial networking activities.
In the mean time, a report of the Telecommunication Policy Council was submitted to the Minister for Post and Telecommunications proposing the deployment of optical fiber networks to cover 20% of the nation by the year 2000, 60% by the year 2005, and 100% by the year 2010. The Industrial Structure Council also issued a program for promoting informatization of industrial structures, calling for the enhancement of information technology in such public areas as basic research, education and administration, and for strengthening the environment for innovation in information technology including security measures, standardization, etc.
Under theses circumstances, NACSIS, as the nucleus of the Science Information Systems in Japan, will strive to deploy giga-bit networks nationwide, to strengthen international networking, and to enhance its electronic library service covering a wider range of scientific disciplines.