The annual Test of Time Award (ToTA) recognizes an outstanding paper that has deeply influenced the HPC discipline. It is a mark of historical impact and recognition that the paper has changed HPC trends. The ToTA also acts as an incentive for researchers and students to send their best work to the SC Conference, and as a tool for understanding what makes lasting results in the HPC discipline.
Papers appearing in the SC Program 10 to 25 years prior to the current conference year are eligible for this award.
ToTA Presentation
Tuesday 17 November 2026
Test of Time Award ChairLori Diachin, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)
Test of Time Award Nominations Open 7 March 2026
7 MAR 2026
Nominations Open
25 MAY 2026
Nominations Close
25 SEP 2026
Award Announcement
The ToTA is presented annually to a single paper published in the SC Conference Proceedings 10 to 25 years ago.
A paper can receive the award only once.
The nomination form includes a statement (maximum 250 words) describing why the paper should be nominated, including its impact and influence on trends in HPC. In addition, you must upload the full paper in PDF format.
A committee formed each year by the General Conference Chair and the Technical Program Chair selects the award winner. The winner is announced in September before the SC Conference.
ToTA winners receive a certificate, plaque, and a cash prize.
On Tuesday, November 17, the author(s) or an expert are invited to give a talk at the Test of Time Award Presentation explaining the significance and impact the paper has had in HPC.
In addition, the award winner is invited to attend the Thursday Awards Ceremony at which they will be recognized.
Shaw DE, RO Dror, JK Salmon, et al. 2009. “Millisecond-scale molecular dynamics simulations on Anton,” In Proceedings of the Conference on High Performance Computing Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC09), Portland, OR, USA, pp. 1-11, doi: 10.1145/1654059.1654126
Chung-hsing Hsu, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL); Wuchun Feng, Virginia Tech; “A Power-Aware Run-Time System for High Performance Computing (Published at SC05)
George Karypis and Vipin Kumar, University of Minnesota, “Multilevel Algorithms for Multi-Constraint Graph Partitioning” (Published at SC98)
The BlueGene/L Team (114 authors), accepted by Jose Moreira and Jeffrey S. Vetter, “An Overview of the BlueGene/L Supercomputer” (Published at SC02)
Vasily Volkov and James Demmel, “Benchmarking GPUs to Tune Dense Linear Algebra” (Published at SC08)
John Salmon and Mike Warren, “A Parallel Hashed Oct-Tree N-Body Algorithm” (Published at SC93)
Michael Wolfe, “More Iteration Space Tiling” (Published at SC89)
Jack Dongarra and Clint Whaley, “Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software” (Published at SC98)
D. Bailey, E. Barszcz, J. Barton, D. Browning, R. Carter, L. Dagum, R. Fatoohi, P. Frederickson, T. Lasinski, R. Schreiber, H. Simon, V. Venkatakrishnan, and S. Weeratunga, “The NAS Parallel Benchmarks – Summary and Preliminary Results” (Published at SC91)
Bruce Hendrickson and Rob Leland, “A Multi-level Algorithm for Partitioning Graphs” (Published at SC95)
William Pugh, “The Omega Project and Constraint Based Analysis Techniques in High Performance Computing” (Published at SC91)
W. Allcock, J. Bresnahan, R. Kettimuthu and M. Link, “The Globus Striped GridFTP Framework and Server,” SC ’05: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM/IEEE Conference on Supercomputing, Seattle, WA, USA, 2005, pp. 54-54, doi: 10.1109/SC.2005.72
Z. Fan, F. Qiu, A. Kaufman, and S. Yoakum-Stover, “GPU Cluster for High Performance Computing,” SC04: Proceedings of the 2004 ACM/IEEE Conference on Supercomputing, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 2004, pp. 47-47, doi: 10.1109/SC.2004.26
Create an account in the online submission system and complete the form. A sample form can be viewed before signing in.
If you have questions about Test of Time Award nominations, please contact the program committee.
Submission, application, and nomination deadlines for all programs and awards, the housing open date, the early registration deadline, and more – all in one place.
