2025 Zhongguancun U30 Awards announced, 30 young entrepreneurs in cutting-edge fields listed

Beijing News (Reporter Liu Yang) On March 28, the 2025 Zhongguancun U30 Winners List was released, featuring 30 young entrepreneurs from cutting-edge fields, with 96.7% focusing on strategic emerging industries and future industries such as biomedicine, brain science, artificial intelligence, and humanoid robots. On the same day, as an important part of the 2026 Zhongguancun Forum annual meeting, the Beijing International Youth Innovation Development Forum was held, where young representatives shared their insights.

On March 28, the 2025 Zhongguancun U30 Winners List was officially released, and the recruitment selection for 2026 was simultaneously launched. Photo provided by the interviewee.

At the forum, young representatives from China and abroad shared their experiences and issued an invitation to global talent to “Gather in Beijing, Create the Future.” Zhang Linfeng, founder and chief scientist of DeepMind Technology and winner of the 2024 Beijing Science and Technology Outstanding Youth Zhongguancun Award, mentioned that Beijing not only has top-notch research soil but also provides young people with solid confidence. There is a concentration of top talent, a complete industrial ecosystem, and comprehensive policy support throughout the entire cycle from startup to growth, including funding support and services like talent apartments and entrepreneurship managers, which are all substantial supports.

“The first seed funding that DeepMind Technology received came from Beijing’s ‘Zhongguancun Disruptive Achievement Transformation Special Fund’, even before our angel round financing,” Zhang Linfeng said.

Li Ying, a researcher at the Beijing Brain Science and Brain-like Research Center and a member of the National Youth Federation Standing Committee, stated that entering the building of the Beijing Brain Institute feels like stepping into a small ‘United Nations.’ More than 30 top overseas scientists, researchers of various ethnicities, and clinical doctors come together. “Everyone gathers here, enjoying absolute freedom in research, allowing for limitless exploration.” Li Ying believes that the calmness of research institutions like the Beijing Brain Institute reflects the overall innovative and entrepreneurial environment of Beijing.

Song Yacheng, founder and CEO of VAST and a 2025 Zhongguancun U30 winner, recalled that as a child, he struggled to draw the world in his mind, and now, by starting an AI 3D business, he hopes to provide every young peer with a “magic brush.” “To realize such a crazy sci-fi dream, the best soil in the world is in Beijing. Because here, your ‘imagination’ can be funded. If you also have a world in your mind that hasn’t been drawn yet, welcome to start your business in Beijing,” Song Yacheng called.

The U30 youth winners of 2025 are targeting domestic alternatives, industry disruptions, or creating entirely new tracks, showcasing distinct characteristics of high starting points, hard technology, and rapid growth, with 12 holding doctoral degrees. The forum also launched the recruitment selection for 2026. This year, Zhongguancun U30 will continue to focus on the development layout of high-end and cutting-edge industries, selecting young scientific and technological “barriers breakers” under the age of 35 with outstanding innovation capabilities, core technical strength, and a spirit of daring to explore, to build a higher quality development platform for young entrepreneurs.

Yu Hao, a representative of the Zhongguancun U30 initiators and CEO of Legend Holdings, stated that currently, young technology entrepreneurs are facing unprecedented opportunities. He looks forward to the new generation of young innovators being able to closely align with the country’s major strategic needs, working together to tackle “bottleneck” technical challenges, while also being brave enough to delve into the “unmanned areas” of basic research and boldly venture into the forefront of hard technology, shouldering the era’s responsibility of technological self-reliance and strength through innovative practice.

It is reported that the Zhongguancun U30 initiative was launched in 2015, co-hosted by the China Association for Science and Technology’s Science Communication Center, Beijing Municipal Talent Work Bureau, Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League, Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park Management Committee, and the People’s Government of Haidian District, Beijing. So far, the initiative has discovered nearly 7,000 young scientific and technological talents, selected 309 outstanding individuals from home and abroad, and nurtured two listed companies and over 90 “specialized, refined, and new” enterprises, becoming an important platform for cultivating young technology leaders and supporting hard technology entrepreneurship.

Editor: Miao Chenxia

Proofreader: Liu Jun

Massive information and precise interpretation, all in the Sina Finance APP.