The Tianfu Cup Returns Under MPS Leadership as AI Takes Center Stage
After a two-year hiatus, the Tianfu Cup returns under MPS lead, combining AI-assisted vulnerability discovery and exploitation, a new competition track, and less transparency in vulnerability handling
The Tianfu Cup (天府杯), China’s premier exploit hacking competition,1 has returned to Chengdu, Sichuan Province, for its sixth edition, held from January 29 to 30, 2026. This time, under the organizational lead of China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS), China’s domestic law-enforcement authority. Launched in 2018 after Chinese authorities barred domestic researchers from participating in international exploit competitions, such as Canada’s Pwn2Own, the Tianfu Cup emerged as a domestic alternative for high-end vulnerability research and exploitation.
After skipping three editions in 2022, 2024, and 2025, the competition has now reappeared, although the reasons for this hiatus and revival remain unclear. The event was first announced on China’s MPS website on January 16. On January 19, the Tianfu Cup’s account on the social media platform X appears to have briefly posted about the competition before deleting the post shortly thereafter. The following day, the event’s website (hxxps://tianfucup[.]cn) became inaccessible from outside China. By February 2, following the conclusion of the contest, the site appeared to have been taken offline entirely and remains inaccessible as of this writing. The Natto Team was nonetheless able to access the website for this piece, which includes screenshots of relevant information, as well as MPS and private company press releases that remain accessible.
Building on earlier analyses of past Tianfu Cup events by the Natto Team and the From Vegas to Chengdu report from the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich, this piece examines what has changed with the Tianfu Cup’s return and why it matters. It analyzes the shift from a commercially led competition to one organized almost entirely by the MPS, specifically the Sichuan Provincial Public Security Bureau. It then looks at the structure of the 2026 edition and its two tracks, including evidence of AI-assisted techniques being used in vulnerability discovery and exploitation. Finally, it explores what remains the most consequential and unresolved question: where vulnerabilities discovered at the Tianfu Cup are likely to end up, and what this suggests about China’s evolving approach to vulnerability retention and state control.
A complete list of competition targets, as disclosed on the 2026 Tianfu Cup website, is reproduced in the appendix at the end of this piece.
