Torsten Hoefler Receives 2024 ACM Prize i.Computing
March 26, 2025
ACM has named Torsten Hoefler of ETH Zurich the recipient of the 2024 ACM Prize in Computing for fundamental contributions to high-performance computing and the ongoing AI revolution. Hoefler developed many of the core capabilities of modern supercomputers and defined key aspects of the algorithms for distributing AI models on them.
Hoefler is a Professor of Computer Science at ETH Zurich (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), where he serves as Director of the Scalable Parallel Computing Laboratory. He is also the Chief Architect for AI and Machine Learning at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS). Hoefler received a Diplom Informatik (Master of Computer Science) from Chemnitz University of Technology and a PhD in Computer Science from Indiana University.
“The capacity of high-performance computers has become mind-boggling,” said ACM President Yannis Ioannidis. “In just the last two years, we have ushered in the era of exascale computers, which can perform a billion billion calculations per second. But high-performance computers could do little without the underlying algorithms and standards that allow them to process massive influxes of data. While Hoefler introduced many of these innovations while he was still a student, they remain the definitive way to program massively parallel systems today. The resulting capabilities of these systems have allowed significant advances in AI, the natural sciences, and many other areas.”
The ACM Prize in Computing recognizes early-to-mid-career computer scientists whose research contributions have fundamental impact and broad implications. The award carries a prize of $250,000, from an endowment provided by Infosys Ltd, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting.
