The Development of the East Asian Observatory

The East Asian Observatory (EAO) was established in 2014 by the East Asian Core Observatories Association (EACOA). The goal of the EAO is to build and operate world-class facilities on behalf of the East Asian regions, as a counterpart to the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Leading astronomical facilities such as ALMA, TMT, GMT, and SKA are mega projects which require enormous economic resources. It is difficult for any observatory or any country to fund such facilities on its own. EAO intends to combine the resources and manpower in our East Asian regions, in order to play a leading role in the next generation frontier instruments. The EACOA institutes: NAOC, NAOJ, KASI, and ASIAA, have authorized the EAO to take on the operations of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on Mauna Kea as their first joint venture. In this talk, we will report on the development of EAO, our current operations of JCMT, and our future aspirations.