Five Shenzhen scientists win 2026 Xplorer Prize

Five Shenzhen-based researchers were named recipients of the 2026 Xplorer Prize yesterday, the highest number the city has recorded in the award’s eight-year history.

They accounted for five of Guangdong Province’s seven recipients and one-tenth of the 50 young scientists selected nationwide this year.

Three of the Shenzhen winners are from the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech). Professor Liu Qihang of the Department of Physics and Associate Professor Chen Zhuoyu received awards in mathematics and physics, while Associate Professor Jia Ning of the School of Medicine was recognized in life sciences.

Professor Xiao Shumin of the Shenzhen campus of Harbin Institute of Technology received an award in information and electronics. Xiao, from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, conducts research in areas including metasurfaces and nanophotonics.

Hu Zheng, a professor at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was honored in the interdisciplinary frontier category. Hu is also director of the Center for Synthetic Biological Evolution at the institute. His research focuses on somatic-cell evolution and computational biology.

Hu is the first researcher from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology to receive the prize. The institute was among seven universities, hospitals and research organizations represented by a winner for the first time this year.

Each recipient will receive a total of 3 million yuan (US$420,000) in unrestricted funding over five years. The program supports researchers working in fundamental science and frontier technologies, giving them discretion over how the funding is used.

Launched in 2018, the Xplorer Prize was initiated by 14 prominent scientists, including physicist Yang Chen-ning, together with Tencent co-founder Pony Ma. It is funded and administered by the New Cornerstone Science Foundation, which was established with 10 billion yuan from Shenzhen-based Tencent.

The latest selection brings the total number of recipients supported by the program to 397.

This year’s recipients, with an average age of 40.5, work at 30 universities, hospitals and research institutions in 13 cities. Ten are women, the first time female representation has reached double digits since the prize was established.

The list also includes the prize’s first recipient born in or after 1995. Zhou Tiankuang, a 30-year-old researcher at Beijing Institute of Technology, was recognized in the interdisciplinary frontier category.

The prize introduced a “Rising Star” place in each funding category last year to identify younger researchers. Ten scientists qualifying under the program’s age criteria were selected this year.