Zhiyuan Guan, a first-year master’s student from Shanghai Jiao Tong University Global College (SJTUGC, abbreviated as GC), serving as a core member of the “Peach Garden Alliance” team, stood out among more than 2,800 teams and 8,400 participants worldwide, securing a place in the global top 10 of the 2025 Tencent Advertising Algorithm Competition. The team was awarded a RMB 100,000 cash prize, and all members received formal employment offers from Tencent.
The competition, which lasted nearly four months, focused on the cutting-edge theme of full-modal generative recommendation. The “Peach Garden Alliance” team integrated multimodal fusion modeling, large-model fine-tuning strategies, and industrial-grade recommendation system architectures to achieve coordinated improvements in algorithm accuracy, inference efficiency, and real-world applicability. Their solution demonstrated strong performance in optimizing key advertising metrics such as click-through rate and conversion efficiency, while also offering innovative approaches to challenges including cold start, filter bubbles, and modality fragmentation in recommendation systems. The project further showcased a dual-track model of academic research and industrial validation, highlighting the practical value of advanced algorithm research in real-world advertising scenarios and providing high-quality technical references for online A/B testing and intelligent advertising deployment.
Zhiyuan Guan, is a master’s student enrolled in 2025 majoring in Computer Science and Technology at GC. His recent achievements include a First Prize at RoboCup China Competition and a Second Prize at ASC World University Supercomputer Competition. Guan’s advisor Yutong Ban is an Assistant Professor and doctoral advisor at GC. Ban received his Ph.D. from the French National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (INRIA) and conducted postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School. He has published extensively in top-tier journals and conferences such as IEEE TPAMI and IEEE TMI in the fields of artificial intelligence, robotics, and medical surgery. His honors include a finalist award for the IROS 2017 Novel Technology Award and the EAES 2022 Gerhard Buess Amazing Technologies Award. He has also served in academic roles including Program Committee Member for ACM MM 2022 and 2026, Editorial Board Member for IEEE ICRA 2024, and IEEE/RAS IROS 2025.
Hosted by Tencent Advertising under the theme “AI-Powered Recommendations for the Future,” the 2025 competition attracted participants from nearly 30 countries, including students from leading institutions such as Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the University of Science and Technology of China, and the National University of Singapore. With a total prize pool of RMB 3.6 million, the competition is widely regarded as a premier platform for identifying top-tier AI engineering talent in China.
GC remains committed to a talent cultivation framework that emphasizes industry–education integration, international collaboration, and competency-oriented development. By encouraging students to engage in high-level academic competitions and real-world industrial projects, the college continues to strengthen students’ innovation capabilities and contribute SJTU expertise and insight to the global AI community.
