Google, a long-time sponsor of the A.M. Turing Award -- sometimes called the Nobel of computing -- has quadrupled the prize money for the award to $1 million.
The Association for Computing Machinery has been handing out the A.M. Turing Award annually since 1966, honoring computer scientists and engineers for "major contributions of lasting importance to computing." Google has been a sponsor since 2007.
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The award, named after British mathematician and cryptographer Alan Turing, has so far been accompanied by a cash prize of $250,000. With the financial help of Google, which has now fully taken over the financing, the award will be exactly four times that amount. This goes into effect with the award for 2014, whose winner will be announced early next year.
"The Turing Award is now funded at the monetary level of the world's most prestigious cultural and scientific awards and prizes," said ACM President Alexander Wolf in a press release.
For comparison, the Nobel prize, which is awarded in several categories -- literature, physics, chemistry, medicine, economics and peace -- is worth 8 million Swedish kronor ($1.1 million).