Chinese mathematicians Wang Hong and Yu Deng poised for historic Fields Medal win

A hidden‑field leak on the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) 2026 website revealed four names slated for the Fields Medal lectures, including Chinese Peking University alumni Wang Hong and Yu Deng. The data, uncovered with a simple curl command, showed the two Chinese mathematicians among the four laureates, a first for China to have two citizens win the award in the same year and potentially the first Chinese citizen ever to receive a Fields Medal.

Wang Hong, a 35‑year‑old former student from Guangxi who earned her doctorate at MIT and now holds a professorship at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, solved the three‑dimensional Kakeya conjecture and has won multiple international prizes. Yu Deng, born in Shenzhen, is an IMO gold‑medalist who completed his PhD at MIT, solved the restricted Hilbert‑sixth problem, and is a professor at the University of Chicago. Both would join a select group of mathematicians who have won the Fields Medal before the age of 40.

The leak prompted the ICM site to go offline briefly before the hidden entries were removed. Prediction markets saw the odds of the four names winning rise above 98 % within hours. The official announcement is scheduled for July 23, 2026, at the opening ceremony in Philadelphia.