Terrence Sejnowski from the Salk Institute and Geoffrey Hinton, a Nobel Laureate, have received the Scientific Breakthrough Award from the inaugural World Digital and Frontier Technologies Awards. The award recognizes their early work that helped connect the study of the brain with computer models of intelligence.
A Boltzmann machine is an early type of artificial neural network inspired by ideas from physics. It was the first learning algorithm able to train multilayered networks effectively. This laid important foundations for today’s deep learning systems and generative artificial intelligence (AI). Their joint 1985 invention remains one of the most biologically realistic approaches to how artificial networks can learn. Sejnowski also developed NETtalk, an early computer program that learned to read written text aloud in a way similar to human speech development. These contributions have influenced many areas, including computational neuroscience, which uses computers to model brain processes, and neuroeconomics, which studies decision-making in the brain.
Pioneering link between brain science and modern artificial intelligence
The World Digital and Frontier Technologies Awards were launched in 2025 at a United Nations summit to honor major advances in digital technologies and their effects on society. Sejnowski serves as a professor and heads the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute, where he holds the Francis Crick Chair. His research has shaped progress across psychology, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and artificial intelligence.
The award highlights the need for scientists to consider both the power of new discoveries and their wider impact on society. Sejnowski’s achievements include many other honors, such as the 2025 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the 2024 Brain Prize, and the 2022 Gruber Prize in Neuroscience. He is a member of several national academies in the United States and a Fellow of the Royal Society in the United Kingdom.
This recognition celebrates how ideas drawn from biological intelligence have helped build the large-scale artificial intelligence systems that now influence many parts of daily life and digital technology.