Two Chinese-born mathematicians have become the first academics from China to receive the Fields Medal, mathematics’ highest honour, joining two other researchers recognised for breakthroughs in longstanding mathematical problems.

Yu Deng, 37, and Hong Wang, 35, were awarded the prize alongside John Pardon of the United States and Jacon Tsimerman of Canada. Each recipient received 15,000 Canadian dollars.

The Fields Medal, awarded every four years to mathematicians under the age of 40, is widely regarded as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for mathematics, says the BBC.

Wang, who is only the third woman to receive the award, was recognised for work on a version of the Kakeya conjecture, a problem first posed in 1917. Working with colleague Josh Zahl, she studied the area traced by a rotating line segment in three-dimensional space, contributing to research in harmonic analysis, a field that examines the behaviour of waves.

Deng, a professor at the University of Chicago, was honoured for solving Hilbert’s Sixth Problem, one of a series of mathematical challenges proposed in 1900. His research focused on deriving the behaviour of an entire system from the motion of individual particles, with applications to the behaviour of gases.

Both winners were born in China and studied at Peking University, where they enrolled in the same year.

Wang entered the university at the age of 16 before completing her doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is now a professor at New York University and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES) in France.

Deng enrolled at Peking University in 2007 before transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He later earned his doctorate from Princeton University.

The awards prompted widespread celebration in China, where related topics attracted millions of views on social media.

Shing-Tung Yau, the first ethnic Chinese recipient of the Fields Medal, described the achievement as a “dream we have been hoping to realise for decades”.

French President Emmanuel Macron also congratulated Wang, saying she “embodies the excellence” of French research and training.