The prestigious 2024 Tan Kah Kee Science Awards and Tan Kah Kee Young Scientist Awards ceremony took place on June 25th. Among the ten recipients of the Tan Kah Kee Young Scientist Award, Professor Jun Zhu from Tsinghua University’s Department of Computer Science and Technology was honored with the Information Sciences Award.

Professor Zhu obtained his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from Tsinghua University’s Computer Science and Technology Department in 2005 and 2009 respectively. He later pursued postdoctoral research at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States. He currently holds the position of Bosch AI Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Tsinghua University and serves as the co-director of the Tsinghua Statistical Artificial Intelligence & Learning (TSAIL) Group. Recognized as a Fellow of both the IEEE and AAAI, Professor Zhu has previously received the Xplorer Prize in 2020 and the Qiushi Outstanding Youth Transformation Award of China Association for Science and Technology in 2023.

This year, Professor Zhu was recognized for his groundbreaking work on efficient algorithms for large-scale denoising diffusion probabilistic models, significantly enhancing the speed and quality of image generation.

The Tan Kah Kee Science Awards, formerly known as the Tan Kah Kee Awards since their establishment in 1988, recognize major original scientific and technological achievements made in China. In 2003, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Bank of China jointly established the Tan Kah Kee Science Award Foundation to support these prestigious awards. Additionally, the Tan Kah Kee Young Scientist Awards were introduced in 2010 to honor young Chinese scientists who have made independent, original contributions to scientific and technological breakthroughs.

Both the Tan Kah Kee Science Awards and the Tan Kah Kee Young Scientist Awards are presented in six fields: mathematics and physics, chemistry, life sciences, earth sciences, information technology sciences, and technological sciences. The awards are conferred biennially. As of 2024, a total of 41 projects and 55 scientists have received the Tan Kah Kee Science Award, while 42 young talents have been recognized with the Tan Kah Kee Young Scientist Award.