Seventeen international projects received the 2025 World Internet Conference (WIC) Prize for Pioneering Science and Technology (Iptek) on Thursday (6/11) in eastern China's Zhejiang Province, in recognition of their breakthroughs in cutting-edge fields.
The award-winning projects cover frontier areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) models, intelligent Internet of Things (IoT), embodied intelligence, and quantum computing.
Among those projects include Microsoft's GitHub Copilot coding agent, Alibaba's open-source large-scale language model Qwen, and key technologies and applications of China's BDS-3 satellite navigation signal.
The 2025 edition of the award received more than 400 valid submissions from participants from 34 countries and regions.
Amid the increasingly rapid scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, innovation is a key force in driving the emergence of new industries, models, and drivers, as well as driving social progress, said Wu Hequan, chairman of the award's evaluation committee and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE).
Wu made the remarks at an awards ceremony held in the ancient water town of Wuzhen in Zhejiang.
Wu said that by building a high-level international exchange platform and pooling global wisdom for innovative development, the WIC Prize for Science and Technology Pioneers continues to discover and showcase world-leading scientific and technological achievements, advancing technology for the common good, and contributing to building an open, inclusive, and digitally intelligent world.
Inaugurated in 2023, the WIC Prize for Science and Technology Pioneering aims to recognize the most innovative achievements in the internet sector throughout the year, as well as strengthen global exchange and cooperation in the field of internet technologies.
Thursday's ceremony is part of the WIC Wuzhen Summit 2025, which will officially open in Wuzhen on and will run.
