Describing the new types of computer that began to be conceived and developed in the 1980s. The features proposed varied but most pointed towards ‘intelligent’ machines with massively parallel processing, widespread use of intelligent knowledge-based systems, and natural-language interfaces. Although progress towards these goals was not as fast as originally imagined, some significant advances have been made. The recent emergence of multi-core processors and the increasing general use of graphics processing units for heavy numerical computation are two recent realizations of fifth-generation development goals. The term derives from the Fifth Generation Computer Systems Project, an ambitious artificial intelligence project initiated by the Japanese government in 1982. This triggered worldwide research into parallel processing, logic programming, and the design of advanced computing platforms generally.