This year's Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to two scientists for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the winners on Tuesday. They are Professor John Hopfield of Princeton University in the United States and Professor Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Toronto in Canada.

The Nobel Committee for Physics said the two scientists "have conducted important work with artificial neural networks from the 1980s onward."

It said: "The laureates' work has already been of the greatest benefit. In physics we use artificial neural networks in a vast range of areas, such as developing new materials with specific properties."