Deng Yu, John Pardon, Wang Hong and Jacob Tsimerman (clockwise from top left) Photo: Screenshot from media reports

Chinese young mathematicians Deng Yu and Wang Hong were awarded Fields Medals, becoming the first Chinese recipients of the prestigious honor, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Thursday. The achievement also marks the first time two Chinese mathematicians have won Fields Medals at the same International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) - a historic breakthrough for the country's mathematical community, China News Service reported.

The other recipients of the 2026 Fields Medals are American John Pardon and Canada's Jacob Tsimerman, per Xinhua.

"I'm overjoyed to receive this honor. It is a great privilege to have my name listed alongside many masters I have long admired. This recognition acknowledges not only myself but also my work and research field. No matter what the future holds, I will press forward on my mathematical journey," Deng told the Science and Technology Daily in an exclusive interview.

The accolade was conferred on Thursday morning local time at the 2026 ICM hosted in Philadelphia, the US. 

Established by the International Mathematical Union (IMU), the Fields Medal is a prestigious honor exclusively conferred on prodigious mathematicians under the age of 40. It is awarded once every four years, with a cap of four laureates per session. Owing to its unparalleled academic prestige and stringent selection benchmarks, the Fields Medal is universally hailed as the "Nobel Prize of mathematics," China News Service reported.

Wang was born in 1991, and Deng born in 1989, both are undergraduate alumni of Peking University's 2007 intake, per China News Service.

Wang earned her doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In February 2025, in collaboration with Joshua Zahl, she resolved the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture, a puzzle that had perplexed the global mathematical community for over a century, domestic media outlet The Paper reported.

Tian Gang, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and chair professor at Peking University, who taught Wang during her undergraduate years, once said that though Wang was not a math competition participant and did not stand out the most in class, her passion for mathematical analysis and years of persistent efforts ultimately led her to groundbreaking achievements, Beijing Daily reported.

Deng obtained his PhD from Princeton University in 2015 and currently serves as a professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago. Jointly with fellow scholars, he settled the narrow formulation of Hilbert's Sixth Problem, for the first time deriving a complete mathematically rigorous logical chain bridging microscopic particle systems to the macroscopic Boltzmann equation, per The Paper.

Deng's fascination with mathematics took root at an early age. Back in the third year of junior high school, he could already score over 130 points on college entrance exam-level mathematics papers. In 2006, he claimed a full-mark gold medal at the China Mathematics Olympiad Winter Camp and secured a spot on the national training team, before winning another gold medal at the subsequent International Mathematical Olympiad, domestic media outlet Global People reported.

Citing earlier reports from Jiefang Daily, domestic media outlet Jimu News reported that Deng enjoys poetry and anime and is eager to share his thoughts on public forums. The report added that Deng believes mathematician is the ideal career for him, and he would write science fiction novels if he did not pursue mathematics.


Global Times