Gordon Bell Prize

This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (May 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject, potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral. Please help improve it by replacing them with more appropriate citations to reliable, independent, third-party sources. (May 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Gordon Bell Prize is an award presented by the Association for Computing Machinery each year in conjunction with the SC Conference series (formerly known as the Supercomputing Conference). The prize recognizes outstanding achievement in high-performance computing applications. The main purpose is to track the progress over time of parallel computing, by acknowledging and rewarding innovation in applying high-performance computing to applications in science, engineering, and large-scale data analytics. The prize was established in 1987. A cash award of $10,000 (since 2011) accompanies the recognition, funded by Gordon Bell, a pioneer in high-performance and parallel computing.

The Prizes were preceded by a nominal prize ($100) established by Alan Karp, a numerical analyst (then of IBM) who challenged claims of MIMD performance improvements proposed in the Letters to the Editor section of the Communications of the ACM. Karp went on to be one of the first Gordon Bell Prize judges.

Individuals or teams may apply for the award by submitting a technical paper describing their work through the SC conference submissions process. Finalists present their work at that year's conference, and their submissions are included in the conference proceedings.