Matei Zaharia, co-founder and CTO of Databricks, has been awarded the 2026 ACM Prize in Computing for his contributions to large-scale data processing and systems that underpin modern AI. Zaharia originally developed Apache Spark during his PhD at UC Berkeley under Ion Stoica, introducing a breakthrough approach that accelerated big data processing and later became foundational to AI and machine learning workflows.
Since then, Zaharia has led engineering at Databricks, which has evolved into a major cloud data platform supporting AI and agent-based systems, reaching a $134 billion valuation and a $5.4 billion revenue run rate. He is also an associate professor at UC Berkeley.
Zaharia highlighted the growing importance of AI in research and engineering, emphasizing its potential to automate complex analysis and accelerate scientific discovery while noting emerging security considerations around AI agents.
Featured image: Credit: Drew Kelly, Databricks
