M39 The Largest Known Prime Number

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) currently offers a US$3,000 research discovery award for participants who download and run their free software and whose computer discovers a new Mersenne prime having fewer than 100 million digits.

There are several prizes offered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for record primes.[7] GIMPS is also coordinating its long-range search efforts for primes of 100 million digits and larger and will split the Electronic Frontier Foundations US$150,000 prize with a winning participant.

The record passed one million digits in 1999, earning a US$50,000 prize.[8] In 2008 the record passed ten million digits, earning a US$100,000 prize and a Cooperative Computing Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.[7] Time called it the 29th top invention of 2008.[9] Both the US$50,000 and the US$100,000 prizes were won by participation in GIMPS. Additional prizes are being offered for the first prime number found with at least one hundred million digits and the first with at least one billion digits.