• IEEE.org
  • IEEE CS Standards
  • Career Center
  • About Us
  • Subscribe to Newsletter

0

IEEE-CS_LogoTM-orange
  • MEMBERSHIP
  • CONFERENCES
  • PUBLICATIONS
  • EDUCATION & CAREER
  • VOLUNTEER
  • ABOUT
  • Join Us
IEEE-CS_LogoTM-orange

0

IEEE Computer Society Logo
Sign up for our newsletter
IEEE COMPUTER SOCIETY
About UsBoard of GovernorsNewslettersPress RoomIEEE Support CenterContact Us
COMPUTING RESOURCES
Career CenterCourses & CertificationsWebinarsPodcastsTech NewsMembership
BUSINESS SOLUTIONS
Corporate PartnershipsConference Sponsorships & ExhibitsAdvertisingRecruitingDigital Library Institutional Subscriptions
DIGITAL LIBRARY
MagazinesJournalsConference ProceedingsVideo LibraryLibrarian Resources
COMMUNITY RESOURCES
GovernanceConference OrganizersAuthorsChaptersCommunities
POLICIES
PrivacyAccessibility StatementIEEE Nondiscrimination PolicyIEEE Ethics ReportingXML Sitemap

Copyright 2026 IEEE - All rights reserved. A public charity, IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.

  • Home
  • /Profiles
  • Home
  • /Profiles

Werner Buchholz

1957–1958 Chair of the IRE Professional Group on Electronic Computers

Featured ImageWerner Buchholz (born 24 October 1922 in Detmold, Germany) is a noted American computer scientist. In July 1956, he coined the term byte, a unit of digital information to describe an ordered group of bits, as the smallest amount of data that a computer could process (bite).

As a member of the team at International Business Machines (IBM) that designed the IBM 701 and the IBM 7030 Stretch, IBM's first transistorized supercomputer, his work was standards-setting in the field of character encoding on computing systems.

Recent Volunteer Positions

1957–1958 Chair of the IRE Professional Group on Electronic Computers
Learn more about volunteering

Awards

1990 Computer Pioneer Award
“For computer architecture.”
Learn more about the Computer Pioneer Award

LATEST NEWS
IEEE Computer Society Honors Srinivas Devadas with the ACM/IEEE-CS Eckert-Mauchly Award
IEEE Computer Society Honors Srinivas Devadas with the ACM/IEEE-CS Eckert-Mauchly Award
How to Pass the Software Professional Certification Level 1 Exam
How to Pass the Software Professional Certification Level 1 Exam
Episode 6 | Discover the Power of IEEE Opportunities That Shape Your Future
Episode 6 | Discover the Power of IEEE Opportunities That Shape Your Future
Computing’s Top 30: Basil Reji
Computing’s Top 30: Basil Reji
2026 Candidate Slate is now Available for the IEEE CS Elections
2026 Candidate Slate is now Available for the IEEE CS Elections
Read Next

IEEE Computer Society Honors Srinivas Devadas with the ACM/IEEE-CS Eckert-Mauchly Award

How to Pass the Software Professional Certification Level 1 Exam

Episode 6 | Discover the Power of IEEE Opportunities That Shape Your Future

Computing’s Top 30: Basil Reji

2026 Candidate Slate is now Available for the IEEE CS Elections

AI-Accelerated Quantum Cryptography: How Soon Should the Enterprise Be Ready?

Computing’s Top 30: Ming Jin

IEEE Computer Society Drives AI Innovation at 24-Hour Hackathon

Get the latest news and technology trends for computing professionals with ComputingEdge
Sign up for our newsletter