1982
Japanese Government Sets Out its 'Fifth Generation' Project

The Fifth Generation Computer Systems [Present and Beyond] (FGCS) was a project run by Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry to create a computer using massively parallel computing/processing.  Begun in 1982, it aimed to create an 'epoch-making computer' with supercomputer-like performance and to provide a platform for future developments in artificial intelligence.  Many other countries were launched their own fifth-generation projects around this time.

Leaps in computer hardware technology have been defined by generation:

• 1st Generation: computers using vacuum tubes;
• 2nd Generation: computers using transistors and diodes;
• 3rd Generation: computers using integrated circuits;
• 4th Generation: computers using microprocessors.

Whereas previous computer generations had focused on increasing the number of logic elements in a single CPU, the fifth generation, it was widely believed at the time, would instead turn to massive numbers of CPUs, running in parallel, for added performance.