PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

David Patterson

Also known as Dave Patterson

David Patterson is a computer scientist whose work includes RISC processors, RAID storage and AI hardware. He earns mathematics and computer science degrees at UCLA, spends four decades at UC Berkeley, and serves as ACM president from 2004 to 2006. After retiring in 2016, he consults for Google on AI chips, shares the 2017 ACM Turing Award with John Hennessy, and coauthors a 2025 Google Cloud article about TPU emissions. In 2026, he coauthors a paper on Google TPU generations from TPU v2 to Ironwood. As of October 2026, he is a Google Fellow, UC Berkeley Pardee professor emeritus and Laude Institute's Founding Board Chair.

Now at
University of California, Berkeley, Google and Laude Institute
Born
1947
Badges

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. 1947–1976

    UCLA education

    David Patterson is born in Evergreen Park, Illinois, in 1947. At UCLA, he earns an AB in mathematics in 1969, an MS in computer science in 1970, and a PhD in computer science in 1976.

  2. 1976–2016

    Computer science at Berkeley

    He serves as a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley from 1976 to 2016.

  3. 1982–1993

    RISC-I and RAID storage

    His Berkeley team builds and demonstrates RISC-I in 1982. With Randy Katz, he leads the RAID project from 1989 to 1993.

  4. 2004–2006

    President of ACM

    He serves as ACM president from 2004 to 2006.

  5. 2016

    Google AI chips

    He retires from UC Berkeley in 2016 and consults for Google on chips for artificial intelligence and machine learning.

  6. 2017

    A Turing Award

    He and John Hennessy share the 2017 ACM A.M. Turing Award for their systematic, quantitative approach to designing and evaluating computer architectures.

  7. 2025

    AI hardware emissions

    In 2025, he coauthors a Google Cloud article on the lifetime emissions of TPU hardware as a Google Distinguished Engineer. The article reports a 3x improvement in carbon-efficiency for AI workloads from TPU v4 to Trillium.

  8. As of October 2026

    Google Fellow and Laude chair

    In 2026, he coauthors a paper on Google's TPUs from TPU v2 to Ironwood, describing their evolution as scalable, power-efficient supercomputers for AI training. As of October 2026, he is a Google Fellow and UC Berkeley Pardee professor emeritus, and Laude Institute's Founding Board Chair.

Career

  1. Since 2016GoogleConsultant, Distinguished Engineer
  2. Since 1976University of California, BerkeleyProfessor of computer science
  3. NowLaude InstituteFounding Board Chair

Education

  1. 1976University of California, Los AngelesPhD in computer science
  2. 1970University of California, Los AngelesMS in computer science
  3. 1969University of California, Los AngelesAB in mathematics

From the biography.

Videos

YouTube videos in which David Patterson speaks or appears, newest first. A model chose them from YouTube search results. List updated 20 October 2026.

  1. David Patterson: Computer Architecture and Data Storage | Lex Fridman Podcast #104Lex Fridman · 27 June 2020 · 1 h 50 min

Video data from YouTube API Services. By watching you agree to the YouTube Terms of Service. How we use YouTube data.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes David Patterson. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Google. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  3. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Google. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.
  4. 20% of people at companies who shape AI also hold a university role, led by Google and Stanford UniversityIncludes Google. We estimate that 539 of the 6,766 people with a known current organization (8%) hold both a university role and a company role, including 20% of people at companies and 13% of people at universities.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of David Patterson yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. David Patterson - CHM computerhistory.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. David Patterson, pioneer of modern computer architecture, receives Turing Award - Berkeley News news.berkeley.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Five Questions for David Patterson - Cal Alumni Association alumni.berkeley.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Designing sustainable AI: A deep dive into TPU efficiency and lifecycle emissions cloud.google.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Google's Training Supercomputers from TPU v2 to Ironwood: Architectural Stability, Scale, Resilience, Power Efficiency, and Sustainability Across Five Generations arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Dave Patterson research.google. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Moonshots // ONE laude.org. Checked 20 October 2026.