Major Turing computing award goes to quantum science for first time

## Summary
Turing Award “for their essential role in establishing the foundations of quantum information science and transforming secure communication and computing”. This is the first time that the Turing Award, often described as the most prestigious prize in computer science , has recognized work related to quantum physics. Bennett and Brassard — partly through joint work — began to investigate the power of phenomena that could go beyond what’s possible with non-quantum, or ‘classical’, methods of information technology as far back as the 1970s. “People thought it was just a little crazy,” says Bennett. “It didn’t occur to people that quantum effects could be used to do things that couldn’t be done classically.” Brassard says the accolade made him "extremely happy". "Had I been asked to choose one recognition at any point in my career, it would have been the Turing Award," he says. Quantum computers will finally be useful: what’s behind the revolution ‘Spooky’ quantum-entanglement experiments win physics Nobel Information technology: A digital genius at play Subjects Computer science Quantum information Quantum physics Latest on: Computer science Quantum information Quantum physics AI is programmed to hijack human empathy — we must resist that World View 17 MAR 26 ‘RAMmageddon’ hits labs: AI-driven memory shortage is impacting science News 13 MAR 26 Releasing open-weight AI in steps would alleviate risks Correspondence 03 MAR 26 Nanophotonic waveguide chip-to-world beam scanning Article 11 MAR 26 Entanglement-assisted non-local optical interferometry in a quantum network Article 25 FEB 26 Parity-doublet coherence times in optically trapped polyatomic molecules Article 11 FEB 26 Nanophotonic waveguide chip-to-world beam scanning Article 11 MAR 26 Why ‘quantum proteins’ could be the next big thing in biology News Feature 03 MAR 26 Entanglement-assisted non-local optical interferometry in a quantum network Article 25 FEB 26 Jobs Associate or Senior Editor (Precision Oncology), Nature Communications Title: Associate or Senior Editor (Precision Oncology) Organisation: Nature Communications Location: Shanghai, Beijing, Madrid or Pune - hybrid wor...

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Charles Bennett (left) and Gilles Brassard (right) pose for a photograph besides a crytopgraphy quilt.
Credit: Lise Raymond
Gilles Brassard and Charles Bennett have been awarded the A. M. Turing Award “for their essential role in establishing the foundations of quantum information science and transforming secure communication and computing”. The two will share the US$1-million prize, the Association for Computing Machinery in New York City announced on 18 March.
The two winners have seemingly unrelated research backgrounds: Brassard is a computer scientist at the University of Montreal in Canada, and Bennett is a physicist at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights in New York.
This is the first time that the Turing Award, often described as the
most prestigious prize in computer science
, has recognized work related to quantum physics. Bennett and Brassard — partly through joint work — began to investigate the power of phenomena that could go beyond what’s possible with non-quantum, or ‘classical’, methods of information technology as far back as the 1970s. “People thought it was just a little crazy,” says Bennett. “It didn’t occur to people that quantum effects could be used to do things that couldn’t be done classically.”
Brassard says the accolade made him "extremely happy". "Had I been asked to choose one recognition at any point in my career, it would have been the Turing Award," he says.
Bennett and Brassard “played a very big part in establishing the foundations of quantum information”, says Stephanie Wehner, a quantum-communications researcher at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. “Quantum information is more than a vehicle for classical information. We can do things with it that don’t have a classical analogue.”
Quantum hacking looms — but ultra-secure encryption is ready to deploy
Bennett and Brassard's work did not only initiate a whole field of technological development, but it also fed back into researchers' understanding of the Universe, says Jonathan Oppenheim, a theoretical physicist at University College London. Bennett and others have used quantum information as a tool for investigating some of the most nagging
problems about black holes
, for example. "This whole revolution of quantum information theory is really bringing insights into the physical world," Oppenheim says.
Quantum encryption
The two winners’ work
took inspiration from the late 1960s
work of the late physicist Stephen Wiesner
. Wiesner had pioneered the idea that the quantum ‘weirdness’ of particles such as photons — which had been seen as a potential nuisance for applications — could be put to good use.
In 1984, Bennett and Brassard developed the first concept of a quantum encryption key
1
— one that the sender of a message could share with the receiver in a stream of photons. They showed that any device trying to intercept that stream would destroy the information stored in the photons, thereby revealing that the transmission had been intercepted. Later that decade, Bennett led a team at IBM that first demonstrated technique experimentally.
Another breakthrough came in 1993. Starting from one of Bennett’s ideas, a team comprising Bennett, Brassard and four other researchers developed the concept of quantum teleportation
2
. It relies on the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, in which two particles share a quantum state even when moved far apart from each other. In teleportation, two entangled particles — one owned by a sender and the other by a receiver — can be used as a conduit to transport quantum information from the sender to the receiver.
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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00818-z
References
Bennett, C. H. & Brassard, G. in
Proc. Int. Conf. Comput. Syst. Signal Proc.
175–179 (1984).
Bennett, C. H.
et al.
Phys. Rev. Lett.
70
, 1895 (1993).
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Entang

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## Expert Analysis

### Merits
- Another breakthrough came in 1993.

### Areas for Consideration
N/A

### Implications
- The two will share the US$1-million prize, the Association for Computing Machinery in New York City announced on 18 March.
- Bennett and Brassard — partly through joint work — began to investigate the power of phenomena that could go beyond what’s possible with non-quantum, or ‘classical’, methods of information technology as far back as the 1970s. “People thought it was just a little crazy,” says Bennett. “It didn’t occur to people that quantum effects could be used to do things that couldn’t be done classically.” Brassard says the accolade made him "extremely happy". "Had I been asked to choose one recognition at any point in my career, it would have been the Turing Award," he says.
- Wiesner had pioneered the idea that the quantum ‘weirdness’ of particles such as photons — which had been seen as a potential nuisance for applications — could be put to good use.
- In 1984, Bennett and Brassard developed the first concept of a quantum encryption key 1 — one that the sender of a message could share with the receiver in a stream of photons.

### Expert Commentary
This article covers quantum, bennett, information topics. Notable strengths include discussion of quantum. Readability: Flesch-Kincaid grade 0.0. Word count: 1018.