The NEC C&C Foundation
- C&C Prize
- 2024 Recipients
- 2024 Prize Ceremony
- Successive Recipients of C&C Prize
- Major Awards won by Successive Recipients
- Past Prize Ceremony 2023 Prize Ceremony 2022 Prize Ceremony 2021 Prize Ceremony 2020 Prize Ceremony 2019 Prize Ceremony 2018 Prize Ceremony 2017 Prize Ceremony 2016 Prize Ceremony 2015 Prize Ceremony 2014 Prize Ceremony 2013 Prize Ceremony 2012 Prize Ceremony 2011 Prize Ceremony 2010 Prize Ceremony 2009 Prize Ceremony 2008 Prize Ceremony
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The 2024 C&C Prize Ceremony took place on November 27, 2024, at the ANA InterContinental Tokyo (Minato ku, Tokyo). A total of 75 guests attended the ceremony venue, while an additional 25 participated online.
The ceremony commenced with an opening address by President Takashi Niino(Photo 2). He highlighted the foundation's activities and reported that the C&C Prize celebrated its 40th anniversary since its inception in 1985, having recognized 79 groups and 125 individuals to date. Among these acclaimed recipients was Professor Emeritus Hinton, who was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024. Additionally, Shunichi Amari(C&C Prize recipient in 2003) and Kunio Fukushima(C&C Prize recipient in 2021) were acknowledged in the context of the Nobel Physics Prize presentation materials. The eligibility criteria were expanded this year to include teams in addition to individuals for C&C Prize recognition.
Hideyuki Tokuda , award committee chair（Photo 3）then announced the selection process and the two awarded groups. Group A was honored for "For contributions to the development and implementation of large-capacity, wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical submarine cable systems", with acknowledgment of Shigeyuki Akibha, Masatoshi Suzuki, and Itsuro Morita. Group B received the award for "For pioneering research of the Transformer deep learning model serving as the foundation of generative AI", with the eight members of the Transformer Team (authors of the paper "Attention Is All You Need": Ashish Vaswani, Noam Shazeer, Niki Parmar, Jakob Uszkoreit, Llion Owen Jones, Aidan Gomez, Lukasz Kaiser, Illia Polosukhin).
The award presentation saw President Niino present the certificates, plaques, and certificate of prize to each of the three recipients in Group A. Representatives from the Transformer Team, Llion Owen Jones, and Lukasz Kaiser, accepted the awards on behalf of their team, with certificates distributed to all members.（Photo 4, 5, 6, 7)
Next, esteemed guests offered their congratulations. Satoshi Nohara, Director General of the Commerce and Information Policy Bureau, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (Photo 8), commended the awardees' achievements, stating that undersea cables contribute to 99% of international communication and thus significantly support the information society. He added that addressing societal challenges demands the utilization of generative AI, emphasizing Japan's focus on promoting innovative technological outcomes to foster growth across various industries and enhance the national quality of life. Naoaki Yamanaka, President of IEICE (Photo 9), shared his reflections on the impact made by the awardees. He recognized that while the recipients' papers were undeniably outstanding, their legacy extended to real-world applications that addressed societal needs. He praised the track record of C&C Prize recipients who had successfully implemented technologies, contributing substantially to society. He concluded his remarks by expressing hope that the exceptional technologies showcased by the current awardees would contribute to creating a brighter, more fulfilling future.
Following the award presentation, the ceremony transitioned to the awardees’ acceptance speeches. Group A members took turns presenting the evolution and capacity expansion of large-capacity wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) undersea cable systems. Dr. Akiba (Photo 10, 11) detailed optical amplificationrelay transmission and the development of wavelength multiplexing, Dr. Suzuki (Photo 12, 13) explained the applications of dispersion-managed solitons within large-capacity undersea cable systems, and Dr. Morita (Photo 14, 15)) focused on the advancements of spatial multiplexing for even greater capacity increases. Group B's presentation featured a joint lecture by Mr. Jones and Dr. Kaiser, both present at the venue. Mr. Jones (Photo 16), representing the team, expressed their gratitude for the award and shared updates about the eight members in Japanese. Dr. Kaiser (Photo 17, 18) provided an overview of Transformer models and their relevance to generative AI. Concurrently, short speeches were given by the online participants: Dr. Vaswani, Mr. Shazeer, Mr. Uszkoreit, and Mr. Polosukhin (Photo 19, 20, 21, 22).
After the acceptance speeches, a cocktail reception was held to celebrate the awardees. Although the networking event lasted approximately 40 minutes, a large number of participants attended, fostering a convivial atmosphere where attendees could offer their congratulations to the awardees and engage in meaningful interactions among themselves. （Photo 23, 24, 25, 26）
A formal dinner (Photo 27) was attended by the recipients and guests. It commenced with an opening address by Prisident Niino, followed by a speech from Norishige Morimoto, President of the IPSJ (Photo 28, 29), which included a toast, initiating the dining and socializing among attendees. As the event concluded, invitations and congratulatory remarks from guests related to Group A awardees were shared (Photo 30, 31, 32), along with replies from the awardees. Representing Group B, Mr. Jones presented a heartfelt thank-you speech. By 7:40 PM, enveloped in a warm ambiance, the banquet drew to a close.