[Condé Nast Japan] The WIRED Innovation Awards 2025 will recognize innovators who are expanding the future regardless of field. AMI, Yoichi Ochiai, Maki Onishi Yuki Hyakuta/o h have been selected as the first recipients. Condé Nast Japan Press Release: September 8, 2025 To Members of the Media The WIRED Innovation Awards 2025 will honor innovators who are expanding the future regardless of field. The first batch of winners has been announced: AMI, Yoichi Ochiai, Maki Onishi Yuki Hyakuta/o h. https://wired.jp/article/wired-innovation-award-2025
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/930/1118/930-1118-bbc891f038c981dd6258c0e98e0aa91a-3556×2000.jpg “WIRED Innovation Award 2025” (C) 2025 Conde Nast Japan. All rights Reserved. WIRED Japan, a media outlet that implements the future, will be holding the WIRED Innovation Award 2025, which will select innovators from a wide range of fields, including science and technology, art, entertainment, and business. The WIRED Innovation Awards was launched in 2016 and has honored a total of 120
organizations over the four years since 2019. Against the backdrop of advances in AI and quantum technology, as well as rapid changes in the environment and society, future definitions of “happiness” will be updated beyond current values. This award aims to look into that future and discover new possibilities for “happiness” envisioned by humanity through innovation. This year, marking the first time the awards have been held in six years, the awards will be relaunched in collaboration with Sekisui House, Ltd., under the new tagline, “This innovation is for the happiness of the future.” The first batch of award recipients has been announced: AMI, a breaker who competed at the Paris Olympics; Yoichi Ochiai, a media artist who also served as the theme project producer for the Osaka-Kansai Expo; and the architectural duo Maki Onishi Yuki Hyakuta / o h. In the future, innovators (winners) will be announced one after another on the special website (URL:
https://wired.jp/article/wired-innovation-award-2025). ■ “WIRED Innovation Award 2025” 1st winner
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/930/1118/930-1118-11a7e0181af94c7531f7397c36a6e2f4-2025×2700.jpg AMI Born in Saitama Prefecture in 1998. Started dancing at age 6 and discovered breaking at age 10. In 2016, she won the “Battle of the Year 2016 2 on 2 B-Girl” competition with her sister Ayu. She has since won Red Bull BC One and the WDSF World Breaking Championships, won a gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and appeared in WIRED’s YouTube series “Tech Support.” She continues to lead breaking culture as a B-Girl. Reason for selection: She has been active internationally in Red Bull BC One, the WDSF World Breaking Championships, and won a gold medal in the Breaking B-Girl competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She has led the Japanese breaking scene. Her achievements have allowed us to discover the richness of breaking culture and reaffirm the potential of identity and the human body. He also appeared on WIRED Japan’s YouTube segment “Tech Support,” spreading the word about the appeal of breaking.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/930/1118/930-1118-1d1bcf70e93a779f81fdcace2679c9b0-2025×2700.jpg Yoichi Ochiai Media artist and associate professor at the University of Tsukuba. Born in 1987. His work explores themes of materialization and transformation in interdisciplinary domains, as well as a longing for mass. His major works include the photo book “Longing for Mass” and the NFT project “Re-Digitalization of Waves.” He has received numerous awards, including the Prix Ars Electronica Honorary Award, the STARTS Prize, the SXSW Creative Experience ARROW Awards, and the Asia Digital Art Award Excellence Award. He is the theme project producer for the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo. Reason for selection: While moving back and forth between technology and art (or folk art), he has explored and presented his unique worldview of “digital nature” in his work. As the progress of artificial intelligence continues to accelerate, huge amounts of data pile up in virtual space, and computers and information run through every aspect of our lives, Ochiai’s thinking and practice pose grand questions for our future. His latest work, “null²,” exhibited at the Osaka Kansai Expo this year, looks beyond computational nature.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/930/1118/930-1118-41f3bb7ade8f555532488bfaaaa77547-2025×2700.jpg Maki Onishi Yuki Hyakuta / o h Architectural unit. Maki Onishi was born in 1983. Yuki Hyakuta was born in 1982. They co-founded o h in 2008. His major works include the Kumamoto Earthquake Museum KIOKU, Shelter Inclusive Place Copal, Good Job! Center KASHIBA, and curation of the Japan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale International
Architecture Exhibition. He has received numerous awards, including the JIA New Designer Award, the Architectural Institute of Japan’s New Designer Award, the Kyoto Architecture Award Grand Prize, the Architectural Institute of Japan Award (for works), the BCS Award, the JIA Japan Architecture Grand Prize, and the Murano Togo Award. He has worked on a wide range of projects, from public buildings to housing and welfare facilities, and in recent years has also been involved in planning and publishing workshops, lectures, study groups, and books. Reason for selection: Conceiving architecture as “a living whole,” they have carefully created spaces that are in tune with the emotions and memories of visitors and users. In particular, recent projects such as the Kumamoto Earthquake Museum KIOKU, Shelter Inclusive Place Copal, and Good Job! Center KASHIBA seem to have an inclusive power that naturally harmonizes diverse wills and words into a single space or landscape. This will surely become a perspective for happy spaces in the future. WIRED Founded in the United States in 1993, WIRED is the world’s most influential media outlet for “implementing the future,” with distribution in English-speaking and Spanish-speaking countries, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Wired is a source of information and ideas that help us understand and reimagine our ever-changing world. From culture to business, science, and design, we deliver breakthroughs and innovations that expand the possibilities of the future. ■ WIRED Japan Official Website https://wired.jp/ ■“WIRED” Japanese version Magazine details
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