Overview
- ACM announced on March 18 that Charles H. Bennett (IBM Research) and Gilles Brassard (Université de Montréal) will share the $1 million 2025 A. M. Turing Award, funded by Google.
- The citation highlights their 1984 BB84 protocol for quantum key distribution, which provides information‑theoretic security by revealing any eavesdropping, with variants now deployed over fiber and satellite links.
- They and collaborators introduced quantum teleportation in 1993 and later entanglement distillation, foundational advances for building long‑distance quantum communication networks.
- The award is the first Turing recognition of work tied to quantum physics, with ACM president Yannis Ioannidis saying the pair changed how scientists understand information itself.
- Reporting emphasizes renewed urgency over a potential 'Q day' and harvest‑now‑decrypt‑later threats, spurring governments and industry to bolster defenses via QKD and post‑quantum cryptography.