Fields Medal List for 2026 Leaked from Website

A technical error on the International Mathematical Union's (IMU) 2026 conference website has led to an early leak of the potential recipients for the Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics. While the official announcement is scheduled for July 23rd at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Philadelphia, a review of the website's source code exposed hidden information about award lectures. This oversight has brought significant attention to the potential laureates.

The leak occurred when the website's event data structure included hidden entries marked as "HIDDEN Fields Medal Lecture." A simple command-line request was reportedly sufficient to extract the names associated with these hidden lectures. The revealed names are Yu Deng (Deng Yun), John Pardon, Jacob Tsimerman, and Hong Wang (Wang Hong). If confirmed, this would mark a historic moment for Chinese mathematics, with two mathematicians potentially receiving the award in the same ceremony for the first time. Furthermore, Hong Wang would become only the third woman to ever receive the Fields Medal.

Both Wang Hong and Deng Yun are alumni of Peking University. Wang Hong's academic journey led her to solve the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture, a problem that has remained unsolved for over a century, spanning fields like harmonic analysis and geometric measure theory. Her work has earned her numerous accolades, including a permanent professorship at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS). Deng Yun's path to mathematics has been characterized by early success in competitions, following a more traditional elite trajectory in the field.

Following the discovery, the IMU website was briefly taken offline, and the hidden entries were subsequently removed. However, the information had already circulated widely within the mathematical community and beyond, with betting markets showing a near-certain probability for the listed individuals. This unintended revelation highlights a significant development in China's contributions to global mathematics.