Deep Learning Giants Receive Million-Dollar VinFuture Prize

Deep learning giants, including NVIDIA Chairman and CEO, receive the million-dollar VinFuture prize from billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong.

The "giants" who contribute to shaping the future

On the evening of December 6, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh solemnly presented the main prize of the VinFuture Prize 2024 worth 3 million USD to scientists whose works have made breakthrough contributions to promoting the advancement of deep learning.

The owners of these projects include: Professor Yoshua Bengio and Professor Geoffrey E. Hinton (Canada), Mr. Jen-Hsun Huang (President and CEO of NVIDIA, USA), Professor Yann LeCun and Professor Fei-Fei Li (USA). Three of the five scientists were present at the Ho Guom Theater to receive the award.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and the winners of the main prize of the 2024 VinFuture Prize worth 3 million USD

According to the VinFuture Prize Council, advances in deep learning have opened a breakthrough era for technological innovations, whereby machines can "learn" from huge amounts of data and achieve incredible accuracy in tasks such as image recognition, natural language processing, and decision making.

Since 2012, deep learning has become a key tool driving major advances in areas such as healthcare, automation, and financial services, shaping future innovation and growth.

This achievement was made possible by the revolutionary contributions to neural networks and deep learning algorithms by Professors Geoff E. Hinton, Yann LeCun, and Yoshua Bengio. In addition, Jen-Hsun Huang pioneered the development of accelerated computing platforms that fueled the explosion of the modern AI (artificial intelligence) era. Professor Fei-Fei Li's creation of the ImageNet dataset also spurred advances in image recognition systems, enabling the training of deep learning models at scale.

All five scientists are big names, "giants" in the field of deep learning, a branch of artificial intelligence (AI). Among them, Mr. Jen-Hsun Huang is a familiar figure to the Vietnamese public, the richest Asian in the US, and currently has many investment plans in Vietnam.

The Presence of AI Could See an Era of Innovation

Speaking at the award ceremony, Professor Yoshua Bengio shared: "My journey with AI began 20 years ago, when I found a need to care about artificial neural networks and wanted to understand the principles behind intelligence. At that time, I did not imagine how great the progress that my colleagues and I would achieve. I also did not imagine the risks and challenges that this technology application could bring. AI can provide great benefits only if we lead AI".

Mr. Jen-Hsun Huang said he was very happy to return to Vietnam in the proud context of his and his colleagues' scientific and technological achievements being honored.

"This is a recognition from VinFuture Foundation for the breakthrough potential of AI in all industries. I am honored to represent my colleagues at NVIDIA, who have dedicated their lives to computer science and related fields, to receive this award. Thank you VinFuture Foundation for recognizing us," said Mr. Jen-Hsun Huang.

Professor Yann LeCun also expressed: "The reason we care about AI is because machines can learn, although not yet like humans, but we are moving towards this goal. I think AI can develop further, become smarter. AI helps us expand human intelligence, in fact, AI has done this, from its predecessors. I believe that AI will soon become a daily thing, for example, my glasses can take pictures of you right now.

AI assistants can become smarter. As we continue to train AI on language, culture, and values, it will create a treasure trove of human data that needs to be shared and knowledge spread around the world, accelerating the progress of science, medicine, and technology. For example, the biggest problems today are cancer, climate change, and many others. We need to see that the presence of AI can witness an era of innovation."

Sharing via video, Professor Geoff E. Hinton said: "I have had the honor of collaborating with Professor Yoshua Bengio and Professor Yann LeCun for many years. All three of us have dedicated our lives to developing neural network technology. And I am delighted to see that the VinFuture Prize also recognizes the contributions of Mr. Jen-Hsun Huang in developing the computer software necessary for AI, as well as Professor Fei-Fei Li in providing big data - the factor that has proven the effectiveness of this technology."

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/nhung-nguoi-khong-lo-linh-vuc-hoc-sau-nhan-giai-thuong-trieu-do-vinfuture-185241206224559641.htm