David May (computer scientist)
British computer scientist (born 1951)
Michael David May (born 1951) is a British computer scientist working primarily in the fields of computer architecture, parallel computing and robotics. He is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bristol and founder of XMOS Semiconductor, serving until February 2014 as the chief technology officer.
May was lead architect of the transputer, the first microprocessor designed for parallel and distributed computing.
He is one of the few individuals who have led the design of a CPU architecture, an interconnect and a modern era programming language.
He pioneered the industrial application of formal methods in microprocessor design, and is particularly well known for his work on memory management and compiler development.
As of 2026, May holds 54 patents in areas including microprocessors, multi-processing and communication protocols.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Early life and education
May was born in Holmfirth, Yorkshire, England and attended Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield. From 1969 to 1972, he was a student at King's College, Cambridge, University of Cambridge, at first studying Mathematics and then Computer Science in the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory, now the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory.
At Cambridge, May learned computer architecture design from David Wheeler, who worked on EDSAC and pioneered the use of subroutines.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “David May (computer scientist)” as british computer scientist (born 1951). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q92730. VIAF identifies the subject as 3127161332353052420008. The Library of Congress control number is nb2011010050. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951, 2014, 2026 and 1969.
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This entry incorporates text from “David May (computer scientist)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.