Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates: ADIA Lab Senior Fellow Professor Torsten Hoefler has been honoured with the Max Planck-Humboldt Research Medal – one of Germany’s most distinguished scientific prizes – jointly presented by the Max Planck Society and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The award recognises Professor Hoefler’s pioneering work and significant contributions to improving algorithmic efficiency for applications in high-performance computing and AI, particularly in climate research.

His project, proposed at the beginning of his ADIA Lab fellowship and presented at the 2023 ADIA Lab Symposium, evaluated climate simulation infrastructure and the role of next-generation computing and AI in advancing these simulations. The Max Planck Society and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation praised Hoefler's achievements in processing large-scale climate data as "a particularly remarkable breakthrough for him and his team". 

Commenting on the announcement, Dr Horst Simon, Director of ADIA Lab, said: “The Max Planck-Humboldt Research Medal is one of Germany’s most prestigious scientific prizes and we are delighted to congratulate Professor Hoefler on his achievement. Climate science is one of ADIA Lab’s key areas of research, so it is particularly pleasing to see one of our Senior Fellows gain such recognition for his work in this field, and it makes us especially proud that we took part in this.”

Professor Hoefler is a distinguished recipient of the Gordon Bell Prize (2019) and the IEEE CS Sidney Fernbach Memorial Award (2022), in addition to winning multiple best paper awards at ACM/IEEE Supercomputing Conferences. His contributions also include significant advancements in scalable networks and parallel programming techniques.

ADIA Lab has a growing number of Senior Fellows who are supported to develop research projects and publish the results to the wider community, including through academic journals and presentations at conferences and workshops. ADIA Lab Fellows collaborate with researchers and professionals both within the UAE and internationally.

For more information about the Max Planck-Humboldt Research Medal, visit: www.mpg.de/awards/max-planck-humboldt-research-award.

To learn more about ADIA Lab Fellows, visit: www.adialab.ae/fellows

To watch the recording of Professor Hoefler’s presentation at the ADIA Lab Symposium 2024, visit ADIA Lab’s YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/QLmqJmj39qs?si=aZzGLzQACNf9HHHH

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About ADIA Lab

ADIA Lab is an independent institution engaged in basic and applied research in Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and High-Performance and Quantum Computing, across all major fields of study. This includes exploring applications in areas such as climate change and energy transition, blockchain technology, financial inclusion and investing, decision making, automation, cybersecurity, health sciences, education, telecommunications, and space. 

Based in Abu Dhabi, ADIA Lab is an independent, standalone entity supported by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), a globally-diversified investment institution that invests funds on behalf of the Government of Abu Dhabi. 

ADIA Lab has its own governance and operational structure, and is guided by an Advisory Board of global thought leaders in data and computationally-intensive disciplines, to pursue its research independently. 

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Nida Noor / Raneem Abudaqqa
Tales & Heads
Email: ADIALab@talesandheads.com