Digitization on Nobel Prize grounds - the tech trend continues
The tech trend continues in the Nobel Prize context. Last year, AI dominated. The Physics Prize went to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for discoveries and inventions that enabled machine learning with artificial neural networks. The Chemistry Prize, shared by David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, who demonstrated how AI could solve a 50-year-old problem on the structure of proteins and accelerate life science research, enabling faster drug discovery.
This year's Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis. In the mid-1980s, they conducted experiments that lead straight to a future near you. In a first step, the development has led to what those who know something about this call established quantum technology. It's something the rest of us use every day: the transistors in computer microchips. This year's physics prize has contributed to the development of the next generation of quantum technology, which could give us tools like quantum cryptography, quantum computers and quantum sensors.
It is clear that this trend has continued. Two of the laureates have a connection to Google. Devoret is the company's Chief Scientist of Quantum Hardware and Martinis previously led work on hardware at Google Quatum AI.
These are the latest in a long line of award winners who have contributed to digital development. Here are some other examples:
- The starting point for all modern electronics and the physical carrier of software is the transistor, which won the Bardeen, Brattain, Shockley Prize in Physics in 1956.
- Fert and Grünberg won the 2007 physics prize for Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) which enables denser hard disks, has given us cheaper mass storage and paved the way for the cloud.
- High-capacity, long-distance data communications, such as the internet, rely on fiber optics, for which Kao was awarded the 2009 Prize in Physics.
- The 2019 Chemistry Prize was awarded to the research behind the lithium-ion battery now widely used in mobile phones, laptops and electric vehicles. The winners were Goodenough, Whittingham and Yoshino.
- The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, which is awarded at the same time as the Nobel Prizes, has been linked to IT developments. For example, radio spectrum auction formats have had a major impact on mobile network deployment and resource efficiency. Auction theory, which underpins these allocation processes, was awarded the prize in 2020 (Milgrom and Wilson, 2020).
What does this tell us, you might ask?
Perhaps that much of digital development is based on research. The latest developed app, your reels and all the systems we use on a daily basis rest on a foundation of groundbreaking discoveries. Some of which are now 40, 70 or more years in the past. So digitization and IT are no longer "new technologies". The Nobel Prizes show this and recognize the crucial contribution of these researchers to today's breathtaking developments, not least in AI.
Fredrik Sand, Industry Policy Expert
Peter Kjäll, Industry Policy Expert