A Japanese government panel has agreed to review a complaint by IBM Japan alleging a public corporation violated procurement rules when it awarded a 1.3 billion yen (€11.9 million) supercomputer bid to rival Fujitsu.
The complaint is reminiscent of fierce US-Japan trade battles over supercomputers and a host of other issues during the 1980s and 1990s.
The Japanese unit of IBM has charged the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute with basing its decision on criteria not outlined in the bid's specifications.
A spokesman for the institute defended the September 28th decision to award Fujitsu the deal for a parallel-processing supercomputer.
"We strictly followed the government's procurement procedures," he said. "We don't believe there is any basis to IBM's claims."
The Government Procurement Review Board has until January 7th to make a decision.
Japan's computer makers and US supercomputer pioneer Cray Research fought bitterly over much of the past two decades for access to each other's markets, exchanging charges of unfair market barriers and threats to national security.
