Shing-Tung Yau predicts China's rise as global mathematical powerhouse

Shing-Tung Yau, renowned mathematician and Fields Medalist, said on Sunday that he expects China to become a world mathematical powerhouse within the next five to 10 years, as the 2026 International Congress of Basic Science kicked off in Beijing.

Speaking at a media briefing on the sidelines of the congress, Yau, congress chair and dean of Tsinghua University's Qiuzhen College, emphasized the importance of curiosity-driven research as the foundation of genuine basic research.

"Research based on curiosity is the only kind that can truly be called basic research. Research driven by curiosity is very important," Yau said.

Citing mathematics as an example, he noted that some mathematical research may not appear significant at first, but its importance gradually becomes clear when it comes into contact with industry.

In the past, China's attempts in curiosity-driven research were insufficient. Now it is moving in that direction, Yau said, expressing hope that all sectors of Chinese society would support such research.

In his opening address, Yau noted that in recent years the Chinese government has provided unprecedented support for basic research, from stable funding to long-term planning, and from talent recruitment to platform construction.

"China has become a fertile ground for global basic research," he said.

Yau also highlighted the significance of two young Chinese mathematicians — Wang Hong and Deng Yu — who won the Fields Medal in July, the highest honor in international mathematics.

Wang successfully solved the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture, opening up new research frontiers in harmonic analysis and geometric measure theory, while Deng made a key breakthrough on Hilbert's sixth problem, bridging mathematics and theoretical physics, Yau added.

"The two heavyweight achievements have shaken the international mathematics community, and public enthusiasm for basic research — both at home and abroad — has reached an unprecedented level," Yau said.

At the media briefing, Yau further elaborated on the milestone significance of Wang and Deng becoming the first Chinese mathematicians to win the Fields Medal in the same year.

"In the 1950s and 1960s, we simply could not imagine that Chinese scientists could reach a world-class level. That may seem laughable now, but it was a fact back then — we worried that we might not have the ability to achieve that," he said.

"Frankly speaking, my own winning of the Fields Medal also had a considerable impact on many Chinese mathematicians," Yau added.

Looking ahead, Yau expressed his expectation that within the next five to 10 years, graduate students trained in China would produce equally important results, and that China would become a world mathematical powerhouse during the same period.

The International Congress of Basic Science was initiated by Yau in 2023. This year marks the fourth consecutive year the congress has been held in Beijing.

The two-week conference will host over 500 academic sessions covering all branches and interdisciplinary directions of basic science, as well as frontier hot spots including generative large model reasoning, computer vision, human-computer interaction and quantum information.