The 2024 #NobelPrize laureates in physics used tools from physics to construct methods that helped lay the foundation for today’s powerful machine learning. John Hopfield created a structure that can store and reconstruct information. Geoffrey Hinton invented a method that can independently discover properties in data and which has become important for the large artificial neural networks now in use. Although computers cannot think, machines can now mimic functions such as memory and learning. This year’s physics laureates have helped make this possible. Using fundamental concepts and methods from physics, they have developed technologies that use structures in networks to process information.