Professor Nasir Ahmed, Presidential Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico, is recognised for his pioneering invention and development of the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), a mathematical algorithm that made possible the compression, transmission and storage of high-quality audio, speech, images, and video information.
An estimated 6.8 billion smartphones with all the interactivity they provide are an integral part of daily life around the globe, keeping us connected anytime, anywhere, and used to record and play back video and audio. At the heart of smartphone technology and also that of the one billion video cameras and 1.8 billion HDTVs worldwide lies a DCT-embedded encoder. DCT is the basis for almost all image, video and audio compression standards in the world such as the JPEG standard for photos and those for MP-3 and Dolby Digital (AC-3). It is difficult to identify a technology that does not depend on it.
Originally from Bangalore in India, Nasir Ahmed moved to the United States in 1961 to study for a Masters degree at the University of New Mexico. He first proposed the revolutionary algorithm in 1972 while finishing his PhD, authoring a paper in IEEE Transactions on Computers in 1974. Before then, video transfer over networks faced a major barrier because the astoundingly high bit rates of uncompressed video required extremely high bandwidth and memory. Ahmed was the first to recognise DCT as a property of the already-existing Discrete Fourier Transform with specific applications to visual and audio signal compression.
He followed up this breakthrough by codifying its importance and promoting awareness and adoption in industry.
Professor Al Bovik, Holder of the Cockrell Family Regents Endowed Chair in Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, says of Professor Ahmed: “Nasir Ahmed can truly and accurately be called the ‘father’ of the DCT. It is safe to say that without his discovery of the DCT and brilliant insights there would be no efficient image and video compression, and hence no revolution in digital and mobile photography, video streaming, digital television and visual social media that underpin and facilitate economic activity and conversations between billions of people worldwide.”
Professor Nasir Ahmed, winner of the 2026 Prince Philip Medal.
Notes for editors
The Prince Philip Medal is presented in honour of the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh KG KT, who was Senior Fellow of the Academy and was instrumental in the establishment of the Royal Academy of Engineering. The award is made biennially to an engineer of any nationality who has made an exceptional contribution to engineering. Previous winners include the wartime pioneer and inventor of the jet engine Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle OM KBE CB FREng FRS and Dr Gladys West, whose mathematical modelling of the Earth’s surface enabled the engineering development of GPS.