(Yicai) Aug. 24 -- The 2026 Xplorer Prize, one of China’s largest funding programs for young scientific and technological talent, named 50 winners today, including its first laureate born after 1995 and a record 10 female scientists.

Tiankuang Zhou of Beijing Institute of Technology, whose research focuses on intelligent optoelectronic computing, became the first laureate born after 1995 in the prize’s eight-year history, according to the list of winners released today.

Established in 2018 by 14 prominent scientists, including Nobel laureate Chen-Ning Yang and Tencent Holdings founder Pony Ma, the Xplorer Prize is a non-governmental award funded by the Tencent Foundation. Almost 400 young scientists have received the prize to date, with each winner receiving CNY3 million (USD446,345) over five years to use at their discretion.

This year’s 50 winners come from 30 universities, hospitals, and research institutions across 13 cities. A record 10 are women, including three selected under the “Rising Star” category for women aged 38 or younger.

This year’s peer-review process also included more international experts, including non-Chinese reviewers, raising the proportion of international reviewers to over 40 percent. Reviewers were also individually matched with candidates based on their specific research fields.

The prize also expanded its reach this year, with seven institutions producing their first winners: Peking University Cancer Hospital, Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to 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. Zhengzhou in Henan province and Tai’an in Shandong province also had their first laureates.

Among this year’s winners is Joshua Zahl, a chair professor at Nankai University who, together with Fields Medalist Hong Wang, solved the century-old Kakeya conjecture in 3D. Zahl and Wang were among four researchers who received the Clay Research Award in April for breakthroughs related to the Kakeya and Furstenberg set conjectures, long-standing problems concerning how lines and thin tubes intersect and are arranged in space.

Editor: Emmi Laine