Day: July 24, 2026

Two Chinese academics have won the world’s top prize for mathematics for the first time, the BBC reports.

Chinese mathematicians Hong Wang and Yu Deng won alongside John Pardon from the US and Jacon Tsimerman from Canada. They each won 15,000 Canadian dollars ($10,500).

Both won for solving problems that have baffled mathematicians for more than a century. And 35-year-old Wang, who teaches in the US and France, is only the third woman to receive the honor.

The Fields Medal, regarded as the Nobel prize equivalent for mathematics, was handed out on Thursday in the US as human computations are increasingly challenged by AI.

The achievement has made huge waves on Chinese social media.

The hashtags “Fields Medal” and “First Chinese mathematicians to win Fields Medals” generated millions of views across various social media platforms from Weibo to Rednote.

“Pride of all Chinese people,” a comment from a Weibo user reads.

“We are witnessing history,” another said.