Andrew Yao

{{Short description|Computer scientist and computational theorist}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Andrew Chi-Chih Yao

| native_name = {{lang|zh|姚期智}}

| image = Andrew Yao P1130016 (cropped).jpg

| caption = Yao in 2015

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1946|12|24}}

| birth_place = Shanghai, China

| death_date =

| death_place =

| citizenship = {{Plainlist|

Republic of China (1946–2015)
United States (?–2015)
People's Republic of China (2015–present)

}}

| education = National Taiwan University (BS)
Harvard University (MA, PhD)
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (PhD)

| thesis1_title = Internal Symmetries and Positivity

| thesis1_url = https://books.google.com/books/about/Internal_Symmetries_and_Positivity.html?id=lalKtwAACAAJ

| thesis1_year = 1969

| doctoral_advisor = Sheldon Glashow (Harvard)
Chung Laung Liu (Illinois)

| thesis2_title = A Study of Concrete Computational Complexity

| thesis2_url = https://archive.org/details/studyofconcretec716yaoa

| thesis2_year = 1975

| known_for = Yao's principle

| field = Computer science
Theoretical physics

| work_institution = Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University
University of California, Berkeley
Princeton University
Tsinghua University
Chinese University of Hong Kong

| prizes = George Pólya Prize (1987)
Knuth Prize (1996)
Turing Award (2000)
Kyoto Prize (2021)

| spouse = Frances Yao

| module = {{Infobox Chinese |child=yes |c = 姚期智 |p = Yáo Qīzhì |w = Yao² Ch'i¹chih⁴ }}

}}

Andrew Chi-Chih Yao ({{lang-zh |c = 姚期智 |p = Yáo Qīzhì}}; born December 24, 1946) is a Chinese computer scientist, physicist, and computational theorist. He is currently a professor and the dean of Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS) at Tsinghua University. Yao used the minimax theorem to prove what is now known as Yao's principle.

Yao was raised in Taiwan and graduated from National Taiwan University. He earned a master's degree and his PhD in physics from Harvard University, then earned a second doctorate in computer science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Yao was a naturalized U.S. citizen, and worked for many years in the U.S. In 2015, together with Yang Chen-Ning, he renounced his U.S. citizenship and became an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.{{cite web |title = Quarterly Publication of Individuals, Who Have Chosen To Expatriate, as Required by Section 6039G |url = https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/10/27/2015-27281/quarterly-publication-of-individuals-who-have-chosen-to-expatriate-as-required-by-section-6039g |website=Federal Register |access-date = 22 February 2017 |date = 2015-10-27 }}{{cite web |url=http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2017-02/21/c_1120503565.htm |title=杨振宁、姚期智正式转为中国科学院院士 |website=Xinhua News }}{{citation |title=Scientists drop U.S. citizenship |journal=Science |date=March 3, 2017 |volume=355|issue=6328|page=891|doi=10.1126/science.355.6328.890 |pmid=28254889 }}{{cite journal |last1=McLaughlin |first1=Kathleen |title=Two top Chinese-American scientists have dropped their U.S. citizenship |journal=Science |date=24 February 2017 |doi=10.1126/science.aal0823 |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/two-top-chinese-american-scientists-have-dropped-their-us-citizenship |quote=CAS released a statement confirming the news but offered no further explanation as to why the two had given up their U.S. citizenship.}}

Early life and education

Yao was born in Shanghai, China, in 1946. His parents later moved to Hong Kong and then Taiwan, where Yao was raised.{{Cite web |title=Lecture: Andrew Chi-Chih Yao, A journey through computer science |url=https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/b6617f79-eda4-491a-ba18-b427ba338a88/ |access-date=2025-03-27 |website=talks.ox.ac.uk |language=en}}

Yao graduated with his Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in physics from National Taiwan University in 1967 and completed graduate studies in the United States at Harvard University, where he earned his Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in physics in 1969 and then his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1972.{{Cite web |last=Communications |first=Grainger Engineering Office of Marketing and |title=Andrew Chi-chih Yao |url=https://grainger.illinois.edu/alumni/distinguished/Andrew-Chi-chih-Yao |access-date=2025-03-27 |website=grainger.illinois.edu |language=en}} His doctoral thesis was titled, "Internal Symmetries and Positivity," and was supervised by Nobel Prize laureate Sheldon Glashow.{{Cite web |title=Harvard PhD Theses in Physics: 1971-2000 {{!}} Department of Physics |url=https://www.physics.harvard.edu/academics/phds1971-2000 |access-date=2025-03-27 |website=www.physics.harvard.edu |language=en}}

In 1975, Yao completed a second Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign as a fellow of the National Science Foundation. His second doctoral dissertation was titled, "A Study of Concrete Computational Complexity," and was supervised by Taiwanese computer scientist Chung Laung Liu.{{Cite web |title=Andrew C Yao - A.M. Turing Award Laureate |url=https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/yao_1611524.cfm |access-date=2025-03-27 |website=amturing.acm.org}}

Academic career

Yao was an assistant professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1975–1976), assistant professor at Stanford University (1976–1981), and professor at the University of California, Berkeley (1981–1982).{{Cite web|url=http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/yao_1611524.cfm|title=Andrew C Yao – A.M. Turing Award Winner|website=amturing.acm.org|access-date=2016-06-12}} From 1982 to 1986, he was a full professor at Stanford University.{{Cite web|url=http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/yaotree.html|title=YaoTree |website=infolab.stanford.edu|access-date=2016-06-12}} From 1986 to 2004, Yao was the William and Edna Macaleer Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University,{{Cite web|url=https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~yao/|title=Andrew Yao|website=www.cs.princeton.edu|access-date=2016-06-12|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160808200627/https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~yao/|archive-date=2016-08-08}} where he continued to work on algorithms and complexity. In 2004, Yao became a professor of the Center for Advanced Study, Tsinghua University (CASTU) and the director of the Institute for Theoretical Computer Science (ITCS), Tsinghua University in Beijing. Since 2010, he has served as the Dean of Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS) in Tsinghua University. In 2010, he initiated the Conference on Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science (ITCS). Yao is also the Distinguished Professor-at-Large in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.{{Cite web|url=http://www.itcsc.cuhk.edu.hk/People.html|title=ITCSC People|website=www.itcsc.cuhk.edu.hk |access-date=2016-06-12|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161008072456/http://www.itcsc.cuhk.edu.hk/people.html|archive-date=2016-10-08}}

In May 2024, Yao joined fellow AI researchers Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, and others in publishing an expert consensus paper describing the extreme risks posed by AI. The authors warned that AI safety research is lagging, and outlined "proactive, adaptive governance mechanisms" for policymakers ahead of the AI Seoul Summit.{{Cite web |title=World leaders still need to wake up to AI risks, say leading experts ahead of AI Safety Summit {{!}} University of Oxford |url=https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-05-20-world-leaders-still-need-wake-ai-risks-say-leading-experts-ahead-ai-safety-summit |access-date=2024-10-21 |website=www.ox.ac.uk |language=en}}{{Cite journal |last1=Bengio |first1=Yoshua |last2=Hinton |first2=Geoffrey |last3=Yao |first3=Andrew |last4=Song |first4=Dawn |last5=Abbeel |first5=Pieter |last6=Darrell |first6=Trevor |last7=Harari |first7=Yuval Noah |last8=Zhang |first8=Ya-Qin |last9=Xue |first9=Lan |last10=Shalev-Shwartz |first10=Shai |last11=Hadfield |first11=Gillian |last12=Clune |first12=Jeff |last13=Maharaj |first13=Tegan |last14=Hutter |first14=Frank |last15=Baydin |first15=Atılım Güneş |date=2024-05-24 |title=Managing extreme AI risks amid rapid progress |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn0117 |journal=Science |language=en |volume=384 |issue=6698 |pages=842–845 |doi=10.1126/science.adn0117 |pmid=38768279 |issn=0036-8075|arxiv=2310.17688 |bibcode=2024Sci...384..842B }}

Awards

In 1996, Yao was awarded the Knuth Prize. Yao also received the Turing Award in 2000, considered the "Nobel Prize" of computer science, "in recognition of his fundamental contributions to the theory of computation, including the complexity-based theory of pseudorandom number generation, cryptography, and communication complexity". In 2021, Yao received the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology.[https://www.kyotoprize.org/en/en/laureates/andrew_chi-chih_yao/ Kyoto Prize 2021] In 2022, he was listed on the Asian Scientist 100.

Yao is a member of U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery,{{cite web |url = https://awards.acm.org/award_winners/yao_1611524.cfm |title=ACM Fellows–1995 |website=acm.org |access-date=10 March 2015}} and an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences. His wife, Frances Yao, is also a theoretical computer scientist.