In order to accelerate the catalyst development for the increasing demand on the fuel cell technology, it has been attempted to adopt a combinatorial approach. The catalytic synergism, often observed on the supported metal catalysts for the fuel cell utilization, has been subjected to study. It is proposed herein that not only a comparison of catalysts in one reaction, but also the comparison of interrelated reactions by use of a common catalyst library brings about important information to elucidate the catalytic synergism. Preliminary results of the comparison between the water-gas shift reaction and the steam reforming of MeOH on a given set of catalyst library are presented. An important indicator to predict the serendipitous synergism is expected to be obtained from such information by use of artificial intelligence. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.