Grußwort Mr. Takao Kato

Grußwort

Mr. Takao Kato
President and Chief Executive Officer,
Information and Computer Systems, Hitachi Ltd., Japan

 

Good Morning, Ladies and Gentlemen.

It gives me great pleasure and honor to be here at this event, signaling the successful installation of the Hitachi SR8000 Super Technical Server, right here at the Leibniz-Rechenzentrum. I would like to convey my utmost gratitude to everyone present today for giving me the opportunity to say a few words.

Both Germany and Japan are currently like twin jewels of the West & East, enjoying economic wealth as leading industrialized nations of the world. The strength and wealth of each nation can largely be said to be dependent on first, science and research, and second, on its application in helping improve every aspect of our lives, namely education, transportation, communications, environment, and utilities, just to mention a few of the many areas impacted.

For basic research and development of highly sophisticated products, the support of the state and federal government in building the groundwork and creating the conditions in which science, economy and education can flourish, is an important factor. At the same time, we need support from strong commercial enterprises as well, to realize the dreams of the researchers and to convert them into usable products. And all of our improvements to society, the economy, the environment and education are based on both new insights into reality and innovation in the perception of new insights as we progress.

For improvement of our insights and knowledge, computers of the highest performance are indispensable. They are excellent tools indeed - but no more, no less.

Without these tools, our ability to gain new insights and enrich our knowledge would be difficult. With the availability of such tools, we are able to see what we could not see before, and to advance to places where we have only dreamed of in the past.

Yet, when introducing new tools or technologies, we must not forget that they are just servants to human beings - and NEVER the other way round. We have to maintain vigilant control over these tools or technologies by the human heart, mind and brain.

How did the former President of Germany, Prof. Dr. Roman Herzog, phrase it? We need to have both "Laptop und Lederhose." This means that both technology and tradition are indispensable, and have to be combined together in order to achieve future advancements in humanity.

If we are able to use them right, tools and technologies will be of great assistance to humanity. The aspect of combining tradition and technology, however, is changing day by day. While tools or technologies have to be controlled, they have to be innovated or brushed up.

Since 1910, Hitachi has contributed to our life and social infrastructure through such products as information and telecommunication systems, semiconductors, consumer products, transportation systems, building facilities and power stations, in addition to high performance computers. The requirements in each era are always changing, and Hitachi responds to these changes. High performance computing is not exceptional.

Based on the combination of advantages from traditional architecture, vector processing and RISC parallel processing, the SR8000 was born with the new architecture, and Leibniz-Rechenzentrum gave us a high evaluation of the system. We are confident that this new architecture meets the demanding requirements. The SR8000 also has been installed in a university in Sapporo this millennium year, which is the Sister City of Muenchen. I have to think that this is not only coincidence, but a sign that technologies crystallized in the Hitachi Supercomputer SR8000 installed here at Leibniz-Rechenzentrum will be a good example of a useful tool to support and strengthen the quest for a better livelihood.

Therefore, Ladies and Gentlemen, through our continuous innovation of technology and service of sincerity, it is of great pleasure and honor to be able to continue the wonderful journey to strengthen and intensify our relations with the Federal Government of Germany, The State Government of the Freistaat Bayern, the Leibniz-Rechenzentrum of the Bavarian Academy of Science and many other institutions. And the journey has just begun.

I wish all of us good luck and success, and I thank you very much again for your support.