This photo taken on Nov. 6, 2025 shows a venue of the 2025 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit in Wuzhen, east China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/Xinhua]

A total of 17 international projects on Thursday received World Internet Conference (WIC) 2025 Awards for Pioneering Science and Technology in east China's Zhejiang province, celebrating their breakthroughs in cutting-edge fields.

The winning projects span frontier fields such as AI models, intelligent Internet of Things, embodied intelligence, and quantum computing. They include Microsoft's coding agent GitHub Copilot, Alibaba's open-source foundational large language model Qwen, and the key technologies and applications of China's BDS-3 satellite navigation signals.

The 2025 awards received more than 400 valid submissions from applicants across 34 countries and regions.

Against the backdrop of an accelerated sci-tech revolution and industrial transformation, innovation has become a core force in catalyzing new industries, models and drivers, powering social progress, according to Wu Hequan, chairman of the awards' evaluation committee and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Wu made the remarks at the awards ceremony, which was held in the ancient water town of Wuzhen in Zhejiang.

Wu noted that by building a high-level international exchange platform and pooling global wisdom for innovative development, the WIC Awards for Pioneering Science and Technology continue to discover and showcase world-leading sci-tech achievements, promote technology for the common good, and contribute to building an open, inclusive, digital-intelligent world.

Inaugurated in 2023, the WIC Awards for Pioneering Science and Technology aim to recognize the year's most pioneering achievements in the internet sector, and to foster global exchange and cooperation in the field of internet technology.

Thursday's ceremony was part of the 2025 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, which will open officially in Wuzhen on Friday and will run through Sunday.