The 2026 Xplorer Prize, one of China’s most significant funding programs for young scientists and tech innovators, announced its 50 winners today. Among them is the first recipient born after 1995, along with a record ten women scientists.
Tiankuang Zhou from Beijing Institute of Technology was recognized as the first laureate born after 1995 in the award’s eight-year history, based on the official list of winners released today. His research centers on intelligent optoelectronic computing.
Founded in 2018 by 14 leading scientists—including Nobel laureate Chen-Ning Yang and Tencent’s founder Pony Ma—the award is a private initiative funded by the Tencent Foundation. To date, nearly 400 young scientists have been honored, each provided with 3 million yuan (approximately $446,345 USD) over five years to support their research.
This year’s winners hail from 30 universities, hospitals, and research organizations spread across 13 cities. Notably, ten are women, with three selected as part of the “Rising Star” category, designated for female scientists aged 38 or younger.
The selection process for this year’s awards incorporated a larger number of international experts, including reviewers from outside China, which increased the global review participation to over 40%. Reviewers were matched individually with candidates based on their specific research expertise.
The prize also expanded its scope, with seven institutions awarding their first winners: Peking University Cancer Hospital, Ruijin Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, ShanghaiTech University, Shandong Agricultural University, Southwest Petroleum University, and Zhengzhou University. Additionally, Zhengzhou in Henan province and Tai’an in Shandong province celebrated their inaugural winners.
Among this year’s laureates is Joshua Zahl, a chair professor at Nankai University. He, alongside Fields Medalist Hong Wang, successfully resolved the long-standing Kakeya conjecture in three dimensions. Their work, along with breakthroughs related to the Furstenberg set conjecture, earned them the Clay Research Award in April. These problems focus on the behavior and arrangement of lines and thin tubes in space.