The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has been handing out the A.M. Turing award for outstanding technical contributions to computing since 1966. The list of recipients, however, does not include any household names. The individuals who have driven the business side of computing, such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, are well known but the people who have contributed to the increased power and efficiency of computing are largely unknown.

This is one of the problems that Google is trying to address by volunteering to quadruple the financial side of the prize and cover the entire amount themselves.

“The Turing Award is now funded at the monetary level of the world’s most prestigious cultural and scientific awards and prizes. With the generous support of Google, we can celebrate the mainstream role of computing in transforming the world and the way we communicate, conduct business, and access entertainment. We can also commemorate the pioneering, fundamental contributions of our ACM Turing Award recipients in advancing computing as a science and a profession.” said ACM President Alexander Wolf, a professor in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London, in a statement.

The first $1 million prize will be awarded at the at the ACM Awards Banquet in the spring of 2015.

“Google is proud to support ACM’s Turing Award. We think it’s important to recognize when people make fundamental contributions in computer science, and we want to help ACM raise awareness of these innovators and the contributions they’ve made to the world,” said Stuart Feldman, Vice President of Engineering at Google.

Alan Mathison Turing, for whom the Award is named, was a British mathematician, logician, philosopher and a pioneer in computer science. His work is credited with leading to todays always on, ubiquitous internet.