Since 2004, the Millennium Technology Prize has been awarded for groundbreaking technological innovations that benefit millions of people around the world. The Prize is EUR 1 million – one of the largest of its kind worldwide – and it is awarded every second year by the Technology Academy Finland, an independent foundation.

The 2020 Prize will be awarded on May 18, 2021 and it can be followed online at https://millenniuminnovationforum.fi/en. Previous winners include Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, Japan’s Shuji Nakamura for blue and white LEDs and Switzerland’s Michael Grätzel for dye-sensitized solar cells.

“ABB has the same purpose as the Millennium Technology Prize. We both want to push the boundaries of technology and share the trust that with science, innovation and technology, we can tackle the problems ahead of us and create a more prosperous and sustainable future,” said Björn Rosengren, ABB CEO.

“We are very proud of the partnership with ABB and that together, we can build awareness for breakthrough innovations and innovators, who advance sustainable technology,” said Markku Ellilä, CEO of Technology Academy Finland.

As part of its innovation commitment, ABB invests significantly in research and development, and in 2020 the company has increased R&D and digital spend to 4.8 percent of Group revenues, corresponding to around $1.3 billion. The company employs some 7,000 R&D engineers globally, of which more than 60 percent are focused on software development and digitalization.

In addition, the company continues to partner with more than 100 leading universities around the world. Among them ABB is working with Carnegie Mellon and Stanford University in the United States, University of British Columbia in Canada, Imperial College in the UK, the Indian Institute of Technology, China’s Tsing Hua University, Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology and ETH Zurich in Switzerland.