We would like to congratulate the recipient of the 2025 ACM Prize in Computing, Matei Zaharia, who is being honored “for his visionary development of distributed data systems and computing infrastructure, which has enabled large-scale machine learning, analytics, and AI at global scale.”

Zaharia’s work addressed a central challenge in computing: how to work with and analyze rapidly growing volumes of data efficiently, and at a scale previously accessible only to the largest technology companies. Early distributed data systems were limited in speed and poorly suited to emerging workloads such as machine learning and interactive analysis. Through a sequence of open-source systems, each targeting a distinct bottleneck, Zaharia changed what any organization could do with massive datasets.

By building tools that any organization could freely use and extend, Zaharia ensured that the benefits of scalable computing became accessible to researchers, nonprofits, and enterprises across every industry. As investment in artificial intelligence accelerates, the infrastructure he built remains key to how data is processed, managed, and used to train and deploy AI applications and agents.

“Matei Zaharia’s work has had a lasting impact on how data is used at scale,” said ACM President Yannis Ioannidis. “By addressing key limitations in earlier systems, he developed technologies that quickly became standard tools for data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Matei’s open-source philosophy has been essential: he made these tools accessible to all. His contributions continue to influence both research and industry, and I look forward to seeing where his current work on AI systems takes us next.”

Zaharia will be formally presented with the ACM Prize in Computing at ACM’s annual Awards Banquet, which will be held on Saturday, June 13 at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

The ACM Prize in Computing recognizes an early to mid-career fundamental innovative contribution in computing that, through its depth, impact, and broad implications, exemplifies the greatest achievements in the discipline. The award carries a prize of $250,000. Financial support is provided by an endowment from Infosys Ltd.

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