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Geoffrey Hinton,  emeritus of computer science at the University of Toronto and winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, has added another prestigious award to his collection: .

The US$3-million prize, awarded by the not-for-profit  in Vietnam, recognizes seminal scientific advancements that are improving the quality of human life and forging a more equitable and sustainable world.

Hinton, known as the “godfather of AI,” shares the prize with Yoshua Bengio, Jen-Hsun (Jensen) Huang, Yann LeCun and Fei-Fei Li. The five are honoured for their contributions to the development and adoption of deep learning, which is revolutionizing fields ranging from biomedical research and transportation to manufacturing, clean energy and agriculture.

“The University of Toronto couldn’t be more proud of University Professor Emeritus Geoff Hinton,” said Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. “When Geoff arrived at U of T nearly 40 years ago, his research into neural networks – influenced by his ideas about how the brain learns – was considered an AI backwater, if it was considered at all. 

“Fast-forward to today, and his seminal work is transforming our world in ways that we’ve only begun to grasp. This award is a testament to the power of curiosity-driven research – and the impact of investing in brilliant, curious researchers.”

The VinFuture Foundation noted that Hinton and Bengio – a professor at the Université de Montréal – were awarded the prize for their research on neural networks and deep learning algorithms. LeCun, the chief AI scientist for Facebook AI Research who was one of Hinton’s post-doctoral students at U of T in the1980s, was recognized for helping develop convolutional neural networks for computer vision. Huang, the co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA, was recognized for his work on computational architectures for deep learning and accelerated computing, while Li, a professor at Stanford University, was celebrated for contributions to computer vision and large-scale image recognition.

In a video message, Hinton, an adviser at U of T’s  who is also co-founder and chief scientific adviser at the  in Toronto, said he was honoured to share the award with such an esteemed group of researchers – including his fellow A.M Turing Award-winners Bengio and LeCun.

“The three of us spent our whole lives developing the technology of neural networks,” Hinton said in remarks that noted the collective nature of the achievement.

“I’m very happy to see that the VinFuture Prize recognizes the contributions of Jensen Huang in developing the kind of compute and software required for artificial intelligence, and Fei-Fei Li in providing the big data that was needed to prove that it worked.”

Now in its fourth year, the VinFuture Prize was created with the goal of celebrating scientific and technological innovations that are aligned with the , which include poverty alleviation, renewable energy, ending hunger and improving health.

Friday’s award ceremony was attended by Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and distinguished leaders, scientists and diplomats from around the world. It was broadcast live on Vietnamese television and streamed online. 

“It’s terrific to see this recognition of Geoff’s extraordinary work and its potential to help address some of the world’s greatest challenges,” said Cowen. “Researchers around the globe – including a number of his former students – are using AI to help solve some of the most pressing challenges of our time in areas such as health care, sustainability and climate change.”

The prize comes as Hinton prepares to officially accept his Nobel Prize in Physics in Sweden on Dec. 10. He shared the Nobel with John J. Hopfield of Princeton University for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.

Hinton, who joined U of T in 1987 after working in universities in the U.K. and U.S., has said that he plans to leverage his growing fame to  – a warning he first shared after leaving a research position at Google in early 2023.