The Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) is proud to celebrate a significant achievement by a close member of our high-performance computing and AI ecosystem. Torsten Hoefler, Professor at ETH Zurich and a pioneer in scalable computing, has been awarded the prestigious 2024 ACM Prize in Computing by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). This recognition honors his fundamental contributions to high-performance computing (HPC) and their transformative impact on the advancement of artificial intelligence.
Awarded annually to early-to-mid-career computer scientists, the ACM Prize in Computing carries a $250,000 prize, with sponsorship from Infosys Ltd. Torsten’s groundbreaking work has fueled innovation across both industry and academia, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in massively parallel systems and accelerating the evolution of AI.
Championing the Future of HPC and AI
From shaping the MPI-3 standard—a critical enabler of distributed deep learning—to pioneering 3D parallelism and network topologies that power today’s largest supercomputers, Torsten’s innovations have directly contributed to the infrastructure that underpins modern AI workloads. His technical leadership and research have advanced scalable architectures and routing protocols that serve as a backbone for training large-scale models, including those used in generative AI systems.
Many of the foundational technologies that Torsten helped define—such as nonblocking collective operations, sparse communication operations, and high-performance interconnection networks—are now integral to how today’s AI and HPC systems are designed and operated at scale.
Reflecting on this recognition, Hoefler shared: “I’m deeply honored to be recognized for those past contributions. I look forward to continuing my active participation in the Ultra Ethernet Consortium to shape the future of AI networking.”
Many of these breakthroughs were also highlighted in Torsten’s keynote at the 2025 Swiss Conference.
A Legacy of Excellence
Torsten Hoefler is currently a Professor of Computer Science at ETH Zurich, where he directs the Scalable Parallel Computing Laboratory. He also serves as Chief Architect for AI and Machine Learning at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS). With a PhD from Indiana University and an early start in transformative systems design, Torsten’s work has shaped not only the theoretical foundations of parallel computing but also the real-world performance of the largest machines in operation today.
His honors include the ACM Gordon Bell Prize, the IEEE CS Sidney Fernbach Award, and the Max Planck-Humboldt Medal—a testament to the far-reaching impact of his research and leadership. He is a Fellow of both ACM and IEEE, and a member of the European Academy of Sciences.
Congratulations from UEC
UEC recognizes and deeply values the type of vision and leadership Torsten exemplifies. His contributions align with our mission to accelerate innovation in next-generation Ethernet infrastructure, with a focus on performance, scalability, and open collaboration.
We extend our sincere congratulations to Torsten on this well-deserved honor and look forward to continued collaboration as we shape the future of high-performance connectivity together.
Learn more at ultraethernet.org.
