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Steve Jobs and Cray-1 supercomputer getting their own US coins
By 2032, every US state and territory will have an innovation coin.

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Steve Jobs and the Cray-1 supercomputer are getting their own coins. Yes, you read that right.
As part of the US Mint’s ongoing American Innovation $1 coin series, California and Wisconsin will soon see their most famous contributions to the tech world immortalized in metal.
Coming in 2026, these new coins will join other state innovations (Iowa’s Norman Borlaug and Minnesota’s mobile refrigeration, for the record) in what might be the nerdiest coin drop in history.
The Treasury and US Mint announced the four upcoming designs, marking the ninth year of the American Innovation program, a long-term effort to celebrate the bright ideas and brighter people that shaped the country.
Governors and state officials get to help pick which icons make the cut, meaning there’s at least some bureaucratic approval before a computer becomes currency.
California’s coin spotlights a young Steve Jobs, sitting cross-legged in a rolling landscape of oak-dotted hills, a nod to the Northern California scenery that helped shape his vision.
Designed by Elana Hagler and sculpted by Phebe Hemphill, the coin’s vibe lands somewhere between Zen master and Silicon Valley dreamer. (Via: Tom’s Hardware)
Along the rim is the phrase “make something wonderful,” one of Jobs’ favorite quotes and the title of a 2023 collection of his writings.
It’s a fitting tribute to the man who gave the world the Apple I, the iMac, the iPhone, and the minimalist black turtleneck.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin’s entry pays homage to a computer so powerful and so stylish, it practically needed its own living room.
The Cray-1 supercomputer, designed by Seymour Cray in the 1970s, looked like a futuristic circular sofa and was the fastest computer on Earth from 1976 to 1982, crunching numbers at a then-mind-boggling 170 megaflops.
Sculptor John P. McGraw and artist Paul Romano capture the Cray’s distinctive shape on the coin, making it the first piece of US currency to double as an ode to high-performance computing.
By 2032, every US state and territory will have an innovation coin, but for now, 2026 is shaping up to be a golden year for tech nostalgia.
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