An interview with Gurindar Sohi, recipient of the 2025 Computer Pioneer Award
Gurindar (Guri) Sohi, Vilas Research Professor, John P. Morgridge Professor, and E. David Cronon Professor of Computer Sciences, Computer Science Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wis., U.S.A., has remained in the same office at the university since 1987 – almost 40 years. He jokes that it even still has some of its original furnishings, like the carpet. But what he does not make light of is the opportunity Wisconsin provided him to ideate and produce the innovations in computer architecture that revolutionized the field.
“Wisconsin, in some people’s eyes, is in the middle of nowhere,” said Sohi. “While the university has always been a top-notch university, we are very far from the mainstream computer industry. As such, we were not constantly subject to what industry was doing. Normally when you are subject to that, you tend to think ‘this is the way, this is right.’ But because we were somewhat isolated from industry influence, we were able to ask the questions, ‘What if? What if you can do this with hardware?’ Being sufficiently removed from what was in vogue and having the luxury of time and freedom to think about what one could do was very beneficial.”
This year, the IEEE Computer Society celebrates Sohi’s achievements through the 2025 IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer in Honor of the Women of ENIAC Award, which was given for his contributions to the microarchitecture of instruction-level parallel processors and his impact on the computer architecture community. The IEEE Computer Society recently interviewed Sohi to discuss his career, what’s developing, and what it means today. The following summary dives into Sohi’s thoughtful consideration of the field and his advice for the future.
You have had a profound impact on the advancement of computer architecture. Where did it all begin?
I came to the United States from India in 1981. I had an opportunity to attend graduate school at the University of Illinois thanks to Professor Ed Davidson. At that time, I never dreamed I’d be able to do what I did. I barely knew anything about computers. But I was fortunate to be given an opportunity, an opportunity to learn from some amazing faculty at the University of Illinois, who grew my interest in computer architecture and made me realize that was what I wanted to do.
The faculty at the University of Illinois had a significant impact on your early love for computer architecture. Who else inspired and influenced you throughout your career?
When I joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985, I was fortunate to be able to meet James E. Smith, now a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an integral early figure in the field of computer architecture. Through him, I learned about supercomputer architecture and high-performance architecture techniques. He infused excitement in me about those techniques and I became fascinated with being able to develop new techniques to do instruction execution out of order in hardware transparent to software.
But I was in my mid-twenties, and I doubted very much what I was doing. This was where Smith’s mentorship became very important. He understood that the approaches of that time, which relied heavily on doing things in software, were not going to be practical or even effective for a variety of reasons. He saw immense value in the work I was doing and his encouragement was very reassuring.
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