This is an abstract for a talk to be given at the Fifth Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology . The full paper is now available.
Biotechnology still remains separate from nanotechnology efforts.
Over the last two years, certain areas of interdisciplinary research linking biotechnology and electronics which could have lead further towards the development of nanotechnology in the Drexlerian sense have fragmented into separate sub-disciplines. The first part of this talk provides a quick overview of Japan's science and technology organizations and their respective areas of research. The third section covers more speculative areas which in Japan are not considered nanotechnology but have possible relevance. Finally, some of Japan's earlier bio-electronics research has mutated over to become research on biological neural networks, artificial intelligence, and molecular computing efforts, which may have relevance to Japanese nanotechnology efforts in the future. On the other hand, Japan is well along the path of developing enabling technologies such as micromachines and instrumentation and could rapidly decide to go completely towards strong nanotechnology if it wished.