The Turing Award was established by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 1966, also known as the "A.M. Turing Award", to reward individuals who have made important contributions to the computer industry. Its name is taken from the pioneer of computer science and British scientist Alan Turing. One of the purposes of establishing this award is to commemorate this scientist. The winner's contribution must be a lasting and significant technological advancement in the field of computing. Most of the winners are computer scientists.

The Turing Award is the most prestigious award in the computer industry, known as the "Nobel Prize in Computer Science". The Turing Award has extremely high requirements for the winners, and the award process is also extremely strict. Generally, only one computer scientist is awarded every year, and only in very few years do more than two scientists who have made contributions in the same direction win the award at the same time. The Turing Award is currently sponsored by Intel Corporation and carries a prize of US$100,000.

Every year, the Association for Computing Machinery will ask nominators to recommend candidates for this year’s Turing Award and attach a 200 to 500-word article explaining why the nominee should win this award. Anyone can be a nominee. The Association for Computing Machinery will form a selection committee to conduct a rigorous review of the nominees and ultimately determine the winner of the year.

As of 2005, there is only one Chinese person who has won this honor. He is Yao Qizhi, the 2000 Turing Award winner.

The Turing Award has extremely high requirements for winners, and the award process is extremely strict. Generally, only one computer scientist is awarded every year, and only in very rare years do two scientists who have made contributions in the same direction win the award at the same time. . Therefore, although the amount of the "Turing" prize is not high, it is the most prestigious award in the computer industry, known as the "Nobel Prize in Computer Science".

Every year, the Association for Computing Machinery will ask nominators to recommend candidates for this year’s Turing Award and attach a 200 to 500-word article explaining why the nominee should win this award. Anyone can be a nominee. The Association for Computing Machinery will form a selection committee to conduct a rigorous review of the nominees and ultimately determine the winner of the year.

Turing Award winner:

2005 Peter Naur

Reason for award: For his contribution to the design of the Algol60 programming language. The Algol60 language is clearly defined and is the prototype of many modern programming languages.

2004 Vinton G. Cerf, Robert E. Kahn

Reasons for the award: For pioneering work on the Internet, including the design and implementation of the Internet's basic communication protocol, TCP/ IP, and exceptional leadership in networking.

2003 Alan Kay

Reasons for the award: Due to original ideas in object-oriented languages, leading the development team of Smalltalk, and fundamental contributions to the PC.

Word of wisdom: The best way to predict the future is to create it.

2002 Ronald L. Rivest, Adi Shamir, Leonard M. Adleman

Reasons for the award: For fundamental work in the theory and practice of public keys.

2001 Ole-Johan Dahl, Kristen Nygaard

Reason for the award: Because object-oriented programming originated from their basic ideas, these ideas are embodied in the programming language SIMULA they designed I and SIMULA 67.

2000 Andrew Chi-Chih Yao (Yao Qizhi)

Reason for award: Awarded for his contribution to computing theory, including pseudo-random number generation algorithms, encryption algorithms and communication complexity .

1999 Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.

Reason for the award: For his landmark contributions in computer architecture, operating systems, and software engineering. Author of The Myth of the Man-Month.

1998 James Gray

Reason for the award: For technical leadership in databases, transaction processing research and related system implementation.

1997 Douglas Engelbart

Reason for the award: For proposing exciting ideas for the future of interactive computers and inventing key technologies to realize this idea.

1996 Amir Pnueli

Reasons for the award: Due to the introduction of temporal logic in computing science and outstanding contributions to programming and system certification.

1995 Manuel Blum

Reasons for the award: Due to fundamental contributions in computational complexity theory, cryptography and program verification.

1994 Edward Feigenbaum, Raj Reddy

Reason for the award: Due to the large-scale artificial intelligence system they designed and built, which proved the importance of artificial intelligence technology and its potential commercial value .

1993 Juris Hartmanis, Richard E. Stearns

Reason for the award: Because their paper laid the foundation for computational complexity theory.

1992 Butler W. Lampson

Reasons for the award: Due to contributions to personal distributed computer systems and their implementation technologies, including: workstations, networks, operating systems, programming systems, Display, security and document release.

1991 Robin Milner

Reason for the award: Due to outstanding and perfect contributions in the three aspects of computable function logic (LCF), ML and parallel theory (CCS).

1990 Fernando J. Corbato'

Reasons for the award: For organizing and leading the development of multifunctional, large-scale, time- and resource-sharing computer systems.

1989 William (Velvel) Kahan

Reasons for the award: For fundamental contributions to numerical analysis.

1988 Ivan Sutherland

Reason for the award: Due to his pioneering and visionary contributions to computer graphics, the technology he established is still effective after two or three decades.

1987 John Cocke

Reason for the award: Due to his important contributions in compiler design and theory, large-scale system architecture, and the development of RISC.

1986 John Hopcroft, Robert Tarjan

Reason for award: due to fundamental achievements in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures.

1985 Richard M. Karp

Reasons for the award: Due to continuous contributions in algorithm theory, especially NP-completeness theory.

1984 Niklaus Wirth

Reason for the award: For the development of a series of new computing languages ??such as EULER, ALGOL-W, MODULA and PASCAL.

1983 Ken Thompson, Dennis M. Ritchie

Reason for award: Due to contributions to theoretical research on general operating systems, especially the implementation of UNIX operating systems.

1982 Stephen A. Cook

Reason for the award: Due to his paper published in 1971, which laid the foundation of NP-Completeness theory.

1981 Edgar F. Codd

Reason for the award: Due to his fundamental and continuous contributions to the theory and practice of database management systems, he is the father of relational databases.

1980 C. Antony R. Hoare

Reason for award: For fundamental contributions to the definition and design of programming languages.

1979 Kenneth E. Iverson

Reason for the award: For his pioneering work in the theory and practice of programming languages, especially APL.

1978 Robert W. Floyd

Reason for the award: For contributions to how to develop efficient and reliable software methodologies, including: establishing analysis theory, semantics of programming languages, automatic Multiple computer sub-disciplines including program inspection, automatic program synthesis and algorithm analysis

1977 John Backus

Reason for the award: Due to his extensive and far-reaching contributions to high-level languages, especially the Fortran language.

1976 Michael O. Rabin, Dana S. Scott

Reason for the award: Because their paper "Finite Automata and Their Decision Problems" proved to be of great value.

1975 Allen Newell, Herbert A. Simon

Reason for award: For fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence, human recognition psychology and table processing.

1974 Donald E. Knuth

Reason for award: Author of The Art of Computer Programming for his important contributions to algorithm analysis and programming language design.

1973 Charles W. Bachman

Reason for award: For outstanding contributions to databases.

1972 E.W. Dijkstra

Reasons for the award: Due to the principle contribution to the development of ALGOL.

1971 John McCarthy

Reason for award: Due to his lecture "The Present State of Research on Artificial

Intellegence", his contribution to the field of artificial intelligence.

1970 J.H. Wilkinson

Reason for award: for his research work in numerical analysis.

1969 Marvin Minsky

Reason for the award: Ominous

1968 Richard Hamming

Reason for the award: for his contributions to counting methods and automatic coding systems , work on detecting and correcting error codes.

1967 Maurice V. Wilkes

Reason for the award: For the design and manufacture of the first internally stored program computer, EDSAC.

1966 A.J. Perlis

Reason for award: for his contributions to advanced programming technology and compilation architecture.