About

Knowledge is humanity’s greatest asset. It defines our nature, and it will shape our future.

The body of knowledge is assembled over centuries. Yet a single mind can extend it immensely. Einstein reimagined space and time. Darwin distilled the chaos of life to a single idea. Turing figured out what it means to think.

Great scientists enrich us all. They enable technologies that ease our lives, but they also show us what’s beyond our horizons.

Science is revealing worlds far beyond the everyday scale, from the subatomic and cellular to the stellar and galactic. Increasingly we can think at these levels and trace the connections between them. And as we do, we are making progress on the truly big questions. Questions like:
Why is there something rather than nothing?
What is the Universe made of?
How did life begin?
How can matter think?
How much is knowable?

The Breakthrough Prize, renowned as the “Oscars of Science”, recognizes the world’s top scientists working in the fundamental sciences – the disciplines that ask the biggest questions and find the deepest explanations.

Each prize is $3 million and presented in the fields of Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics and Mathematics. In addition, the New Horizons in Physics and Mathematics Prizes and the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize are awarded to early-career researchers.

Laureates are honored at an annual ceremony broadcast globally that celebrates their achievements and inspires the next generation of scientists. Selection Committees composed of previous Breakthrough Prize laureates in each field choose the winners.

The Breakthrough Prizes were founded by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Anne Wojcicki. The Prizes have been sponsored by the personal foundations established by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Ma Huateng, Jack Ma, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Anne Wojcicki.