ACM Gordon Bell Prize

How to Nominate

Overview

The Gordon Bell Prize is awarded each year to recognize outstanding achievement in high-performance computing. The purpose of the award is to track the progress over time of parallel computing, with particular emphasis on rewarding innovation in applying high-performance computing to applications in science, engineering, and large-scale data analytics. Prizes may be awarded for peak performance or special achievements in scalability and time-to-solution on important science and engineering problems. Financial support of the $10,000 award is provided by Gordon Bell, a pioneer in high-performance and parallel computing.

Next Deadline

April 15, 2025  - End of Day, Anywhere on Earth (AoE), UTC -12 hr.

Selection Criteria

Nominations will be evaluated on the basis of the following considerations:

  • Evidence of important algorithmic and/or implementation innovations
  • Clear improvement over the previous state-of-the-art
  • Performance is not dependent on an architecture that is specialized or cannot be replicated
  • Detailed performance measurements demonstrate the submission’s claims in terms of scalability (strong as well as weak scaling), time to solution, and efficiency in using bottleneck resources (such as  memory size or bandwidth, communications bandwidth, I/O), as well as peak performance. 
  • Achievement is generalizable, in the sense that other scientists can learn and benefit from the innovations

Although solving an important scientific or engineering challenge is important to demonstrate/justify the work, scientific outcomes alone are not sufficient for this prize.

Submissions

Nominations for the Gordon Bell Prize must explain the innovations, detail the performance levels achieved on one or more real-world applications, and articulate the implications of the approach for the broader HPC community.   Prepare materials in the format specified below, and submit them using the online nomination form.

  • Name, address, phone number, and email address of nominator (person making the submission).
  • List of individual names (including the nominator, if appropriate) to be cited as awardees, along with the institutional affiliation for each. Note: Teams with more than 12 individuals will need to provide a team name, which will be used in lieu of the individual names in circumstances where space is limited (e.g., plaques).
  • Suggested citation if the nomination is selected.  This is normally the same as the title under which the nomination statement will be published in the SC proceedings.
  • Nomination (PDF not exceeding 11 pages in length, following typical technical paper page standards: 11pt font, single spaced text, fitting within 7.5” x 10” text area [no template available] OR use the IEEE format required by SC19  with 10pt font and allow 11 pages instead of 10 pages. Template for the IEEE format is available at https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html).  Each nomination must provide the information necessary for judging and comparison, but also be suitable for inclusion in the SC conference proceedings, organized into the following sections.  Note that the materials should explain the contribution in terms understandable to a non-specialist.  Only nominations meeting all requirements will be considered.
  • Optional but desirable: Up to 3 endorsement letters in PDF.  Letters should be provided by independent individuals or institutions from the discipline of the candidates' real-world application, describing how the candidates' result could potentially produce key scientific advances in that discipline.  The nominator should collect the letters and bundle them for submission.
  1. Abstract
    • (150 word max)
  2. Justification for ACM Gordon Bell Prize
    • (50 word max)
    • indicate what implementation or performance “high watermark” was achieved (rather than the science that was enabled)
  3. Performance Attributes
    • (use a table listing each attribute title and value in a separate row)
    • Category of achievement (1+ of:  scalability, time-to-solution, peak performance)
    • Type of method used (1 of:  explicit, implicit, both explicit and implicit, semi-implicit, n/a)
    • Results reported on the basis of (1 of:  whole application including I/O; whole application except I/O; kernel only; other [specify])
    • Precision reported (1 of:  single precision, double precision, mixed precision)
    • System scale (1 of:  results measured on full-scale system, projected from results of smaller system, other [specify])
    • Measurement mechanism (1 of:  timers, FLOP count, static analysis tool, performance modeling, other [specify] )
  4. Overview of the Problem
    • description of the problem and its importance, in terms understandable to a non-specialist (1 p max)
  5. Current State of the Art
    • quantitative discussion of current SoA, with emphasis on performance-related aspects  (1 p max)
  6. Innovations Realized
    • what the innovations are and how they were achieved (2 pp max)
  7. How Performance Was Measured
    • (Note that preference is given to performance actually measured [not projected], based on the entire application [including I/O] and with uniform precision.  Explain in detail if any portion of total runtime was not included in the measurements, if and where different precisions were used, or any attributes listed in Section 3 as “other”).
    • what application(s) was used to measure performance (1 p max)
    • system and environment where performance was measured (1 p max)
  8. Performance Results
    • include scalability (weak and strong), time to solution, efficiency (of bottleneck resources), and peak performance (2 pp max)
  9. Implications
    • implications for future systems and applications (1 p max)
  10. References  (1 p max)

The committee will select up to 6 nominations as “finalists” made on the basis of empirical performance measurements submitted (not extrapolated performance predictions).  Each nominator should be prepared to reproduce both performance and scientific results.

Finalist submission will be published in the SC proceedings and presented at the SC conference.   Prior to publication, finalists will be allowed to correct typographic errors, but no other changes to the text will be permitted prior to publication unless specifically requested by the committee.

Finalists will be given the opportunity to provide updated results in early August, prior to the final award decision. 

For questions on the above, please contact us at [email protected]  or  Jade Morris , ACM Awards Committee Liaison.  ACM's conflict-of-interest guidelines apply to all award nominations.