Alvey
The Alvey Programme was a British government sponsored research program in information technology that ran from 1984 to 1990. The program was a reaction to the Japanese Fifth Generation project, which aimed to create a computer using massively parallel computing/processing. The program was not focused any specific technology such as robotics, but rather supported research in knowledge engineering in the United Kingdom.[1] It has been likened in operations to the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Japan's ICOT.
Background
During the early 1980s, Japan invited the United Kingdom to become a part of the Fifth Generation Project. In response, a committee was created and was chaired by John Alvey, a technology director at British Telecom. The report generated proposed a different course of action to the Japanese initiative and became the basis for the UK's rejection of the Fifth Generation and the creation of its own Alvey Programme.[2] The program's fundamental goal was the improvement of the advanced information technology in the UK to address the declining performance of this sector.[3] It operated in 1984 until 1990.[3]
Alvey was not involved in the program itself.[4]
Focus areas for the Alvey Programme included:
- VLSI (very large scale integration) technology for microelectronics
- Intelligent Knowledge Based Systems (IKBS) or Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Software Engineering
- Man-Machine Interface (including Natural Language Processing)
- Systems Architecture (for parallel processing)
References
- Aleksander, Igor (2013). Decision and Intelligence, Volume 6. London: Kogan Page. p. 185. ISBN 9781850914075.
- Kakas, A. C.; Sadri, F. (2003). Computational Logic: Logic Programming and Beyond: Essays in Honour of Robert A. Kowalski. Berlin: Springer. p. 11. ISBN 3540439595.
- Dodgson, Mark (2018-03-26). Technological Collaboration in Industry: Strategy, Policy and Internationalization in Innovation. Routledge. ISBN 9781351265584.
- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/yourbusiness/7258984/One-small-step-forward-is-one-giant-leap-backwards-for-government.html
- Brian Oakley and Kenneth Owen, Alvey: Britain's Strategic Computing Initiative, MIT Press, 1990. ISBN 0-262-15038-7
- Chris Rigatuso, Takeshi Tachi, Dennis Sysvester & Mark Soper, Collaboration between Firms in Information Technology, Berkeley, EE 290X Group G.
- Richard Tyler, The Daily Telegraph, Feb 9th 2010.