The International Mathematical Union (IMU), which awards the most prestigious prize in mathematics, has granted this year's Fields Medal to four researchers: Hong Wang and Yu Deng of China, American John Pardon, and Canadian Jacob Tsimerman. Wang, a 35-year-old who teaches at New York University, is only the third woman to receive the honour since it was established in 1936, following Iran's Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014 and Ukraine's Maryna Viazovska in 2022; she was recognised in part for solving a century-old geometry problem originally posed by Japanese mathematician Soichi Kakeya. The medals were presented at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia, where laureates also addressed the growing influence of artificial intelligence on the field, with Tsimerman announcing he will join OpenAI's safety division and warning that the mathematics profession will not remain as it is today.