HONG KONG, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — On 28 January, The Shaw Prize Foundation announced the establishment of The Shaw Prize in Computer Science, joining the existing prizes in Astronomy, Life Science and Medicine, and Mathematical Sciences.
The inaugural Selection Committee, comprising world-leading experts, will select the first laureate(s). Nominations will open from September to November 2026, with the announcement scheduled for spring 2027.
Leading the committee is Professor Jennifer Chayes, Dean of the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society at UC Berkeley. She pointed to the committee’s diverse composition as a core strength: “Our committee brings together extraordinary expertise from around the globe, reflecting the international and interdisciplinary nature of computer science today. This diversity ensures a balanced, inclusive, and rigorous evaluation process.”
Professor Tony Chan, who chaired the Planning Committee that shaped the new prize, joins the Selection Committee as a member. A former President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, he hoped that The Shaw Prize “will lend its prestige and track record to recognize true outstanding contributions to computer science.”
Another former university president on the committee is Professor John L Hennessy, who served as President of Stanford University for 16 years and received the 2017 ACM A.M. Turing Award. “I hope The Shaw Prize,” he said, “brings deep recognition of the importance and intellectual depth of computer science as a field.”
The committee includes another three Turing Award laureates – Professors Jack Dongarra, Yann LeCun, and Joseph Sifakis. Professor Dongarra, a 2021 Turing awardee and currently Research Professor Emeritus at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, said it is a privilege to help define this new prize from the ground up: “I hope the Prize signals that bold, field-defining ideas—especially recent ones—are seen, valued, and celebrated by the global community.”
Professor Sifakis, a 2007 awardee and currently Emeritus CNRS Research Director at Verimag Laboratory, addressed the field’s deepest challenges: “The answer to the quest for intelligence lies in exploring mental phenomena and understanding how consciousness arose in living organisms.”
Professor LeCun, Executive Chairman at AMI Labs and Jacob T. Schwartz Professor of Computer Science at New York University, received the Turing Award in 2018. He served for many years as Chief AI Scientist at Meta.
“Computing is one of the most important human capabilities”, said Council Chairman of HKUST, Professor Harry Shum. He recognised the power of computer science: “We are reaching human intelligence level quickly. This is going to have unprecedented and profound impact to humanity, mostly beneficial, but not without many concerns.”
Concluding the perspectives, Professor Jeannette M Wing, Executive Vice President for Research and Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, said: “It’s a tribute to computer science for The Shaw Prize Foundation to recognize our field and to honor those who have not only provided a scientific understanding of computation, but also developed technology that has transformed every aspect of our lives.”
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