Oppenheimer was in the extremely rare position of being personally acquainted with von Neumann, familiar with using computers to solve practical problems, and able to fund new projects. After the war, Oppenheimer took charge of IAS and used the institute’s money to pay for von Neumann’s work. Von Neumann agreed not to patent his computer, which is fortunate. His design, known as the von Neumann architecture, revolutionized computing and still describes the basic structure of modern machines.
