Fields medal honours four mathematicians as AI reshapes the profession The International Mathematical Union awarded the prestigious Fields Medal to four mathematicians on Thursday, including only the third woman to receive the honour, as researchers weighed the growing impact of artificial intelligence on a field increasingly being reshaped by the technology. The world of mathematics handed out its most prestigious awards on Thursday, at a unique moment for the field as it faces pressure from AI's potential to outpace human calculation. The Fields Medal, known as the Nobel Prize of mathematics, is handed out every four years and this time was awarded to two Chinese citizens, one American and one Canadian.

The honour – a recognition of outstanding discoveries by researchers under the age of 40 that is bestowed by the International Mathematical Union – comprises 15,000 Canadian dollars (US$17,000) and a gold medallion bearing the likeness of Archimedes. Chinese mathematicians Hong Wang and Yu Deng, American John Pardon, and Canada's Jacob Tsimerman are this year's recipients of the prize. Wang is only the third woman to receive the honour since its inception in 1936.

The 35-year-old from China teaches in France as well as the United States, at New York University. To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading.

To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. She follows in the footsteps of Maryam Mirzakhani of Iran, who won the prize in 2014, and Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska, who won it in 2022. Wang is being honoured for work that notably led to a solution.

Last year, she solved a mathematical puzzle that had stumped experts for more than a century. The conjecture was originally posed by Japanese mathematician Soichi Kakeya. "In 1917, Kakeya asked a very simple question: if you rotate a pencil so as to turn it completely around, what is the smallest area it sweeps out?" Wang told AFP.

Along with her colleague Josh Zahl, she finally found an answer by analysing what would happen if the pencil was floating in three-dimensional space, rather than on a flat table. "If this conjecture fascinates people so much, it is because this kind of phenomenon shows up naturally in problems from very different fields," Wang said. 'That's beautiful' The parallel win for Deng, who teaches at the University of Chicago, underscores China's growing prominence in the maths world in recent decades.

During a press briefing, he called it a "really great honour to have my name listed after all those great mathematicians I've always been admiring". The United States, which holds the record for the most laureates, was also represented by the 37-year-old Pardon. And Tsimerman, 38, rounds out the quartet.

The medals were awarded during the opening ceremony of the International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia. Read moreMicrosoft strikes 'multibillion-dollar' deal with French AI firm Mistral A specialist in complex algebraic geometry and analytic number theory, Tsimerman said his interest in mathematics started with a puzzle his grandfather told him.