Yoshua Bengio

Yoshua Bengio is a Canadian computer scientist known for pioneering work on artificial neural networks and deep learning.

Yoshua Bengio is a Canadian computer scientist known for pioneering work on artificial neural networks and deep learning. He is a professor at Université de Montréal, founder and scientific advisor of Mila, and co-president and scientific director of LawZero. He shared the 2018 ACM A.M. Turing Award for foundational contributions to deep learning.

Early life and education

Yoshua Bengio was born in Paris, France, in 1964. He later built his academic career in Canada and is identified as a Canadian computer scientist.

Academic career

Bengio has been a professor at Université de Montréal since 1993. He founded Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, and remained its scientific director until 2025. He is also associated with Canada CIFAR AI Chair work and has held leadership roles in research institutes focused on machine learning.

Research and influence

He is widely recognized for foundational contributions to deep learning and neural networks. His work helped make deep neural networks central to modern computing.

Awards and honours

Bengio received the 2018 ACM A.M. Turing Award with Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun. He has also been identified as a fellow or member of several academies and honours bodies.

Recent work

According to LawZero, Bengio shifted his focus toward mitigating catastrophic AI risks and promoting beneficial AI. LawZero states that this direction led to the organization’s founding in 2025.