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| ACM Turing Award | |
|---|---|
_in_1936_at_Princeton_University.jpg/500px-Alan_Turing_(1912-1954)_in_1936_at_Princeton_University.jpg) Alan Turing, the award's namesake | |
| Awarded for | Outstanding contributions in computer science |
| Country | United States |
| Presented by | Association for Computing Machinery |
| Reward(s) | US$1,000,000[1] |
| First awarded | 1966 |
| Last awarded | 2023 |
| Website | amturing.acm.org |
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science.[2] It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in the field of computer science and is often referred to as the "Nobel Prize of Computing".[3][4][5]
The award is named after Alan Turing, who was a British mathematician and reader in mathematics at the University of Manchester. Turing is often credited as being the founder of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence,[6] and a key contributor to the Allied cryptanalysis of the Enigma cipher during World War II.[7]
From 2007 to 2013, the award was accompanied by a prize of US$250,000, with financial support provided by Intel and Google.[2][8] Since 2014, the award has been accompanied by a prize of US$1 million, with financial support provided by Google.[1][9]
The first recipient, in 1966, was Alan Perlis, of Carnegie Mellon University. The youngest recipient was Donald Knuth who won in 1974, at the age of 36,[10] while the oldest recipient was Alfred Aho who won in 2020, at the age of 79.[11] Only three women have been awarded the prize: Frances Allen (in 2006),[12] Barbara Liskov (in 2008),[13] and Shafi Goldwasser (in 2012).[14] As of 2024[update], 77 people have been awarded the prize, with the most recent recipient, in 2023, being Avi Wigderson.[15]