Turing Award goes to founders of quantum information
Mar 18th 2026
Gilles Brassard and Charles Bennett won the 2026 Turing Award for founding quantum information science, developing quantum key distribution, and seeding advances in secure communication, quantum computing, and theoretical physics.
- The Association for Computing Machinery awarded the 2026 A. M. Turing Award to Gilles Brassard and Charles Bennett on 18 March, with a shared US$1 million prize.
- Brassard and Bennett helped create the field of quantum information and developed the 1984 BB84 quantum key distribution protocol that reveals eavesdropping.
- Bennett led an IBM team that delivered the first experimental demonstration of the technique in the 1980s.
- Their work underpins quantum communications and computing and has informed theoretical physics research including black hole information questions.
- This is the first time the Turing Award has recognized work directly related to quantum physics
Articles
- A Quantum Leap for the Turing Award www.wired.com
- Founders of quantum information win top prize in computer science www.nature.com
- Computer science’s ‘Nobel Prize’ goes quantum www.science.org
- Pair win Turing Award for computer encryption breakthrough www.bbc.com