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Industry Collaboration Index

Sector Award · Frontier technologies · 2026

Software, Cloud and Data: the winner and finalists

10 finalist partnerships, chosen from 185 eligible university and company partnerships in the open record. The winner is listed first; the other finalists follow in alphabetical order of university. The winner in each category is the finalist with the highest partnership score (volume of joint work 40%, years active 30%, field-weighted citation impact 30%) in the frozen Edition 1 record. No panel, nomination or payment plays any part. Winners were announced with the index at 05:30 BST, Thursday 15 October 2026, after the corrections and opt-out window closed at 17:00 BST on Tuesday 13 October.

All award categoriesThe Software, Cloud and Data sector index
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Winner · partnership score 92.0, the highest in the category

Stanford University×Google

United States · company based in United States · 18 joint works in the sector · active 5 of 5 years · field-weighted citation impact 3.03
FK
Fredrik KjølstadAcademic co-author · Stanford University · 3 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
AB
Aart J. C. BikIndustry co-author · Google · 3 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
“Compiler Support for Sparse Tensor Computations in MLIR” (2022, 53 citations)
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Carnegie Mellon University×Microsoft

United States · company based in United States · 35 joint works in the sector · active 5 of 5 years · field-weighted citation impact 2.29
CM
Christopher MeiklejohnAcademic co-author · Carnegie Mellon University · 3 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
CG
Chris GillumIndustry co-author · Microsoft · 3 joint works in the partnership
“Durable functions: semantics for stateful serverless” (2021, 62 citations)
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ETH Zurich×Microsoft

Switzerland · company based in United States · 16 joint works in the sector · active 5 of 5 years · field-weighted citation impact 3.67
KJ
Kim Philipp JablonskiAcademic co-author · ETH Zurich · 2 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
AW
Andreas WilmIndustry co-author · Microsoft · 2 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
“Sustainable data analysis with Snakemake” (2021, 1,848 citations)
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Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology×Samsung

South Korea · company based in South Korea · 28 joint works in the sector · active 5 of 5 years · field-weighted citation impact 1.57
WC
Woon Hyung CheongAcademic co-author · Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology · 3 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
JA
Janho AnIndustry co-author · Samsung · 2 joint works in the partnership
“Demonstration of Neuromodulation‐inspired Stashing System for Energy‐efficient Learning of Spiking Neural Network using a Self‐Rectifying Memristor Array” (2022, 41 citations)
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National Tsing Hua University×Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company

Taiwan · company based in Taiwan · 22 joint works in the sector · active 5 of 5 years · field-weighted citation impact 1.69
RL
Ren-Shuo LiuAcademic co-author · National Tsing Hua University · 9 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
WK
Win-San KhwaIndustry co-author · Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company · 11 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
“Fusion of memristor and digital compute-in-memory processing for energy-efficient edge computing” (2024, 121 citations)
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Sungkyunkwan University×Samsung

South Korea · company based in South Korea · 40 joint works in the sector · active 5 of 5 years · field-weighted citation impact 1.26
WY
Woo Jong YuAcademic co-author · Sungkyunkwan University · 4 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
JH
Jin‐Woo HanIndustry co-author · Samsung · 2 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
“Biomimetic Spiking Neural Network Based on Monolayer 2-D Synapse With Short-Term Plasticity for Auditory Brainstem Processing” (2024, 0 citations)
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University of Akron×Vrana GmbH

United States · company based in · 7 joint works in the sector · active 5 of 5 years · field-weighted citation impact 2.38
NI
Nathan IdaAcademic co-author · University of Akron · 7 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
JV
Johannes VranaIndustry co-author · Vrana GmbH · 7 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
“NDE 4.0: Progress, promise, and its role to industry 4.0” (2023, 67 citations)
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University of Birmingham×NovaMechanics

United Kingdom · company based in Cyprus · 12 joint works in the sector · active 5 of 5 years · field-weighted citation impact 2.30
IL
Iseult LynchAcademic co-author · University of Birmingham · 11 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
AA
Antreas AfantitisIndustry co-author · NovaMechanics · 10 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
“European Registry of Materials: global, unique identifiers for (undisclosed) nanomaterials” (2022, 27 citations)
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University of California San Diego×Google

United States · company based in United States · 18 joint works in the sector · active 4 of 5 years · field-weighted citation impact 2.55
AL
Andric LiAcademic co-author · University of California San Diego · 3 joint works in the partnership
JR
Jianfeng RenIndustry co-author · Google · 3 joint works in the partnership
“Depth First Search” (2025, 0 citations)
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University of Cambridge×CMCL Innovations

United Kingdom · company based in United Kingdom · 8 joint works in the sector · active 5 of 5 years · field-weighted citation impact 4.22
SM
Sebastian MosbachAcademic co-author · University of Cambridge · 5 joint works in the partnership · ORCID
AB
Amit BhaveIndustry co-author · CMCL Innovations · 3 joint works in the partnership
“Universal Digital Twin - A Dynamic Knowledge Graph” (2021, 161 citations)

Partnership score: volume of joint work 40%, years active 30%, field-weighted citation impact 30% (shrunk toward 1.0 when evidence is thin). Joint works count half where the only company author also holds a post at the university. The named researchers co-wrote the cited paper and represent a wider team. Full rules.