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Zhang Tong

Two Peking University alumni made history by winning the Fields Medal this week, a victory spotlighting a broader wave of young high-achieving Chinese scientists rising to global prominence.
The International Congress of Mathematicians announced on Thursday that Wang Hong and Deng Yu, both of whom entered the top Chinese university in 2007, were awarded the highest honour for mathematicians under 40.
It is the first time Chinese nationals have received the prestigious award often called the “Nobel Prize of mathematics”.
Mathematician Cai Tianxin, a distinguished professor at Zhejiang University, said China’s research standards had caught up with the West and, with a more flexible academic environment, its young scientists were poised to achieve global recognition.
“Wang Hong and Deng Yu are both courageous in tackling and overcoming challenges.”
Cai cited leading Chinese scientists in the first half of the 20th century, including influential mathematicians Shiing-Shen Chern, Hsu Pao-lu and Wu Wenjun, as well as Nobel-winning physicists Chen-ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee.
“[Wang and Deng] are fortunate to have had the opportunity [like the Chinese scientists above] to study at top-tier universities in Europe and the United States in their youth and conduct research under mentors at the global forefront of the field,” he said in an interview.


“The difference today is that maths research at China’s leading universities is approaching world-class standards, with compensation and facilities that rival those of top Western institutions.
“If the academic environment were to become more flexible, I believe that this younger generation of mathematicians will soon achieve results that command global admiration.”
Tian Gang, a Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) academician and the director of Peking University’s maths centre, said in an interview with science outlet The Intellectual that Wang and Deng’s achievements pointed to the rising prominence of China’s maths education system.
“The goal is not the prize itself, but developing young mathematicians ready for the toughest challenges. Their breakthroughs reflect the growing strength of China’s maths education system, not just personal success,” he said.
I believe that China has become a hotbed for basic research
Shing-Tung Yau, Tsinghua University
According to Tian, this year “the number of Chinese mathematicians nominated for the Fields Medal was the highest in history – at least four or five”, although the official nomination list is not made public.
“The emergence of talent is not a sudden spike but the result of a long‑nurtured training ecosystem,” he said.
From the “golden generation” cohort of talented mathematicians who entered Peking University around 2000 – including Xu Chenyang, Liu Ruochuan, Yun Zhiwei and Yuan Xinyi – to the class starting in 2007, including Wang and Deng, and onwards to the younger cohort of Liu Yifeng, Feng Jiandong, Cao Yunlong and Su Jun, he said there was a talent pipeline stretching more than two decades.
Across maths, physics, life sciences and disruptive technologies, a generation of young Chinese scientists in their thirties has produced world-class breakthroughs in recent years.
Making waves in AI
Among young Chinese talents beginning to take centre stage in the AI large-model field are Moonshot AI founder Yang Zhilin, who was born in 1992 and graduated from Tsinghua University with a bachelor’s degree.

After earning his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, he turned down a job offer from Apple and returned to China to start his own business.
The open-source Kimi K3 model he developed achieved performance on par with top-tier international standards upon its release, sparking panic among major artificial intelligence (AI) models in Silicon Valley, a jolt reminiscent of the AI shock caused by the Chinese start-up DeepSeek.
Born in 1985, DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng went to Zhejiang University in Hangzhou for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. The DeepSeek model released at the end of 2024 was a Sputnik moment for many outside China.
Ten days ago, after a financing round, Liang’s net worth soared to US$36 billion.
In China, the heavy, sustained investment in cultivating the home-grown talent pipeline is seen as starting to pay off.
Shing-Tung Yau is the first Chinese-born Fields Medallist – although he was not a Chinese citizen when he received the award in 1982.

Yau, dean of Tsinghua’s Qiuzhen College since retiring from Harvard in 2022, said he hoped Chinese mathematicians educated in China would achieve breakthroughs at home.
“In recent years, President Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasised the importance of basic research. Over the past decade or so, Chinese maths has made remarkable progress, with some disciplines joining the world’s top ranks, and an increasing number of scholars are making strides towards world-class work,” he said in an interview.
“Currently, China’s support for basic sciences, including maths, is unprecedented and surpasses that of any other country in the world. I believe that China has become a hotbed for basic research.
“I hope that the young generation of mathematicians who have grown up in China can achieve the most crucial breakthroughs on home soil, and carve out our own path for Chinese maths.
“This is the most important step to becoming a mathematical powerhouse, and it is also an inevitable path for China to become a leading nation in science and technology.”
Rising generation of Chinese scientists
Many of the rising stars in China’s science and technology field have studied both domestically and abroad, before returning home to study further, work, innovate and collaborate.
Wang and Deng – who went on to MIT and Princeton for advanced training – and many other scientists share a Chinese foundation combined with advanced studies at foreign institutions.
Liu Yifeng, born in 1985, is now a professor at Zhejiang University’s Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics.
Like Fields Medallists Wang and Deng, Liu graduated from Peking University’s school of mathematical sciences in 2007 before earning a PhD at Columbia University in the US.

He then taught at MIT, Northwestern and Yale universities in the US. He resigned from his tenured professorship at Yale in 2021 to return to China where his research covers algebraic number theory, automorphic forms and algebraic geometry.
In 2025, his team received the Alexanderson Award – an honour from the American Institute of Mathematics previously given to only four Chinese scholars since its inception in 2018.
He also received a Sloan Research Fellowship for early-career researchers and the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize, which is named for an early 20th century Indian mathematician.
He is now a candidate for academician status at CAS and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the country’s highest lifelong academic title.
Feng Jiandong, born in 1992, is a Qiushi Distinguished Professor at Zhejiang University.
Feng also started at Zhejiang and at 26, after completing his PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne in 2018, returned to China and established a physical biology laboratory at Zhejiang.
He has developed innovative cross-disciplinary experimental methods combining single-molecule electrical, optical, chemical and quantum measurement techniques, with his research featured on the cover of Nature. In 2024, he received the sixth Xplorer Prize, a prominent Chinese science award.
Scientist Cao Yunlong, born in 1991, is a researcher at Peking University’s Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Centre. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he led systematic studies on B-cell immune responses and the structure and function of specific antibodies against the virus.
Cao did his undergraduate work in physics at Zhejiang University’s Chu Kochen Honours College and studied at Harvard for a PhD in chemistry.
He has written or co-authored more than nine papers in leading journals such as Cell, Nature and Science as first or corresponding author, and was named to Nature’s list of the top 10 people in science in 2022. He too was awarded the Xplorer Prize in 2024.
Biologist Su Jun, born in 1994, is a researcher at the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing.
Su Jun earned his bachelor’s degree at the Chinese University of Hong Kong before pursuing graduate studies abroad and completing postdoctoral studies at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
He revealed molecular mechanisms behind why human eggs mis-segregate chromosomes, and proposed the first prevention strategy to improve how human eggs organise and safely separate their DNA.
At the age of 28, he appeared on MIT Technology Review’s list of under-35 innovators in China, and at 29 he received the Damo Academy Qingcheng Award, which recognises scientific innovation from scholars under 35.
Additional reporting by Shi Huang


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Science

Fields Medallists highlight new wave of Chinese scientists leading global research

Deng Yu (far left) and Wang Hong (far right) were awarded the Fields Medals on Thursday, marking the first time Chinese mathematicians have won the honour. The other recipients for 2026 are American John Pardon (second left) and Canada’s Jacob Tsimerman. Photo: Xinhua

Founder of Moonshot AI, Yang Zhilin. Photo: Reuters

Professor Yau Shing-tung, director of the Yau Mathematical Sciences Centre at Tsinghua University. Photo: Edmond So

Liu Yifeng. Photo: Handout

Fields Medal win: Wang Hong, Deng Yu are first Chinese nationals to score top maths honour

Chinese nationals Deng Yu (left) and Wang Hong (right) have won the Fields Medal, often called the “Nobel Prize of mathematics”. Photo: Handout

The Fields Medal is the top honour for young mathematicians under 40 years of age. Photo: Handout

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Chinese physicist Pan Jianwei has been named a recipient of the Unesco-Russia Mendeleev International Prize in the Basic Sciences, an award commemorating the creator of the periodic table. Photo: Handout

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Some of the scientists and experts who left the West for China in 2026 (from left to right): Peipei Chen, Dai Liang and Zhang Kai. Photo: Handout

Omar Yaghi receives the Nobel Prize in Stockholm in December. Photo: Getty Images

Jiang Jianfeng says the decision to return to his home country is a “natural choice”. Photo: Handout

Ling Haibin is a former Empire Innovation Professor at Stony Brook University in New York and IEEE Fellow. Photo: Handout

Zhu Ziqiang, who has joined Hong Kong Polytechnic University as chair professor of electrical machines and control systems. Photo: Handout

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Many of America’s best PhD applicants have come from Chinese undergraduate programmes. Photo: Handout

News

China

Wang Hong and Deng Yu’s historic Fields Medal win illustrates China’s decades-long investment in scientific talent pipeline, say advocates


Wang Hong and Deng Yu’s historic Fields Medal win illustrates China’s decades-long investment in scientific talent pipeline, say advocates.


Fields Medallists highlight new wave of Chinese scientists leading global research

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Wang Hong and Deng Yu’s historic Fields Medal win illustrates China’s decades-long investment in scientific talent pipeline, say advocates

Wang Hong and Deng Yu’s historic Fields Medal win illustrates China’s decades-long investment in scientific talent pipeline, say advocates