CD274 and cancer: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the sixth most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer‐related death worldwide.[1] Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have been increasingly used in HCC treatment, but only 20% of HCC patients benefit from immunotherapy.[2] Meanwhile, current approaches to select suitable patients for ICI treatment mainly depend on high PD‐L1 expression and lymphocyte infiltration.[3] Still, prognosis prediction is often incorrect due to lacking an original tumor microenvironment (TME).