Research Lab
My group is interested in Artificial Intelligence, Optimization, and Machine Learning and its applications. We develop new methodologies (e.g., new optimization and learning algorithms), work on combining learning and decision-making, as well as design AI Systems for real-world deployment in various application contexts. Recent examples include the estimation of biomass from satellite data, entanglement and non-locality thresholds via optimization, new constructions in extremal combinatorics via AI, as well as questions around AI and creativity. [group homepage] [more about research and projects]
TL;DR. We use computers to learn from data and make better decisions.
Prospective Students. If you are interested in working in our group or writing your MS/BS thesis please check our openings.
Select Recent Papers
(see publications for a complete list)
- Porto, L. E. A., Designolle, S., Pokutta, S., and Quintino, M. T. (2025). Measurement incompatibility and quantum steering via linear programming. Preprint. [arXiv] optphysicsquantum
- Haase, J., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Beyond Static Responses: Multi-Agent LLM Systems as a New Paradigm for Social Science Research. Preprint. [arXiv] haiimlsocial
- Halbey, J., Rakotomandimby, S., Besançon, M., Designolle, S., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Efficient Quadratic Corrections for Frank-Wolfe Algorithms. Preprint. [arXiv] fwopt
- Hendrych, D., Besançon, M., Martínez-Rubio, D., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Secant Line Search for Frank-Wolfe Algorithms. To Appear in Proceedings of ICML. [arXiv] opt
- Iommazzo, G., Martínez-Rubio, D., Criado, F., Wirth, E., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Linear Convergence of the Frank-Wolfe Algorithm over Product Polytopes. Preprint. [arXiv] mlopt
- Urbano, A., Romero, D. W., Zimmer, M., and Pokutta, S. (2025). RECON: Robust symmetry discovery via Explicit Canonical Orientation Normalization. Preprint. [arXiv] mlsymmetry
- Wirth, E., Peña, J., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Adaptive Open-Loop Step-Sizes for Accelerated Convergence Rates of the Frank-Wolfe Algorithm. Preprint. [arXiv] mlopt
- Wirth, E., Peña, J., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Fast Convergence of Frank-Wolfe algorithms on polytopes. To Appear in Mathematics of Operations Research. [arXiv] mlopt
- Mundinger, K., Zimmer, M., Kiem, A., Spiegel, C., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Neural Discovery in Mathematics: Do Machines Dream of Colored Planes? To Appear in Proceedings of ICML. [arXiv] ai4mathai4sciencedggraphs (Oral Presentation + Conference Proceedings)
- Sadiku, S., Chitranshi, K., Kera, H., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Training on Plausible Counterfactuals Removes Spurious Correlations. Preprint. [arXiv] mlxai
- Roux, C., Martínez-Rubio, D., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Implicit Riemannian Optimism with Applications to Min-Max Problems. To Appear in Proceedings of ICML. [arXiv] mlopt
- Pelleriti, N., Zimmer, M., Wirth, E., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Approximating Latent Manifolds in Neural Networks via Vanishing Ideals. To Appear in Proceedings of ICML. [arXiv] compalgmltheory
- Kera, H., Pelleriti, N., Ishihara, Y., Zimmer, M., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Computational Algebra with Attention: Transformer Oracles for Border Basis Algorithms. Preprint. [arXiv] ai4mathcompalgml
- Zimmer, M., Spiegel, C., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Compression-aware Training of Neural Networks using Frank-Wolfe. In K. Fackeldey, A. Kannan, S. Pokutta, K. Sharma, D. Walter, A. Walther, and M. Weiser (Eds.), Mathematical Optimization for Machine Learning (pp. 137–168). De Gruyter. [PDF] [arXiv] mloptsparsity
- Haase, J., Klessascheck, F., Mendling, J., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Sustainability via LLM Right-sizing. Preprint. [arXiv] haiimlsustainability
- Haase, J., Hanel, P. H. P., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Has the Creativity of Large-Language Models peaked? An analysis of inter- and intra-LLM variability. Preprint. [arXiv] haiimlsocial
- Takahashi, S., Pokutta, S., and Takeda, A. (2025). Accelerated Convergence of Frank–Wolfe Algorithms with Adaptive Bregman Step-Size Strategy. Preprint. [arXiv] fwopt
- Sharma, U., Goel, K., Dua, A., Pokutta, S., and Woodstock, Z. (2025). A note on asynchronous Projective Splitting in Julia. Preprint. [arXiv] opt
- Głuch, G., Turan, B., Nagarajan, S. G., and Pokutta, S. (2025). The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Watermarks, Transferable Attacks and Adversarial Defenses. Proceedings of ICLR 2025 Workshop on GenAI Watermarking (WMARK). [arXiv] [summary] [poster] [conference] mlxai
- Aigner, K.-M., Denzler, S., Liers, F., Pokutta, S., and Sharma, K. (2025). Scenario Reduction for Distributionally Robust Optimization. Preprint. [arXiv] optrobopt
- Carderera, A., Pokutta, S., Schütte, C., and Weiser, M. (2025). An efficient first-order conditional gradient algorithm in data-driven sparse identification of nonlinear dynamics to solve sparse recovery problems under noise. To Appear in Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics. [PDF] [arXiv] [summary] ai4sciencemlopt
- Lasby, M., Zimmer, M., Pokutta, S., and Schultheis, E. (2025). Compressed sparse tiles for memory-efficient unstructured and semi-structured sparsity. Proceedings of ICLR 2025 Workshop on Sparsity in LLMs (SLLM). [PDF] [conference] hpcml
- Fackeldey, K., Kannan, A., Pokutta, S., Sharma, K., Walter, D., Walther, A., and Weiser, M. (Eds.). (2025). Mathematical Optimization for Machine Learning. de Gruyter. mlopt (Proceedings of MATH+ TES Summer Semester 2023)
- Martínez-Rubio, D., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Beyond Short Steps in Frank-Wolfe Algorithms. Preprint. [arXiv] mlopt
- Mexi, G., Kamp, D., Shinano, Y., Pu, S., Hoen, A., Bestuzheva, K., Hojny, C., Walter, M., Pfetsch, M. E., Pokutta, S., and Koch, T. (2025). State-of-the-art Methods for Pseudo-Boolean Solving with SCIP. Preprint. [arXiv] ipoptsoftware
- Wirth, E., Besançon, M., and Pokutta, S. (2025). The Pivoting Framework: Frank-Wolfe Algorithms with Active Set Size Control. To Appear in Proceedings of AISTATS. [arXiv] mlopt (Oral Presentation + Conference Proceedings)
- Braun, G., Carderera, A., Combettes, C. W., Hassani, H., Karbasi, A., Mokthari, A., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Conditional Gradient Methods. to appear in MOS-SIAM Series on Optimization. [arXiv] mloptsurvey
- Sadiku, S., Wagner, M., Nagarajan, S. G., and Pokutta, S. (2025). S-CFE: Simple Counterfactual Explanations. To Appear in Proceedings of AISTATS. [arXiv] mlxai
- Kerdreux, T., d’Aspremont, A., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Local and Global Uniform Convexity Conditions. To Appear in Special Issue of Fields Institute Communications. [arXiv] mlopt
- Besançon, M., Designolle, S., Halbey, J., Hendrych, D., Kuzinowicz, D., Pokutta, S., Troppens, H., Viladrich Herrmannsdoerfer, D., and Wirth, E. (2025). Improved algorithms and novel applications of the FrankWolfe.jl library. Preprint. [arXiv] optsoftware
- Martinez-Rubio, D., Roux, C., Criscitiello, C., and Pokutta, S. (2025). Accelerated Methods for Riemannian Min-Max Problems. To Appear in Proceedings of AISTATS. [arXiv] mlopt
- Haase, J., and Pokutta, S. (2024). Human-AI Co-Creativity: Exploring Synergies Across Levels of Creative Collaboration. Preprint. [arXiv] haiimlsocial
- Designolle, S., Vértesi, T., and Pokutta, S. (2024). Better bounds on Grothendieck constants of finite orders. Preprint. [arXiv] optphysicsquantum
- Abbas, A., Ambainis, A., Augustino, B., Bärtschi, A., Buhrman, H., Coffrin, C., Cortiana, G., Dunjko, V., Egger, D. J., Elmegreen, B. G., Franco, N., Fratini, F., Fuller, B., Gacon, J., Gonciulea, C., Gribling, S., Gupta, S., Hadfield, S., Heese, R., … Zoufal, C. (2024). Quantum Optimization: Potential, Challenges, and the Path Forward. Nature Reviews Physics. [PDF] [arXiv] optphysicsquantumsurvey
Select Recent Talks and Teaching
- 06/2025: (technical) “Constrained Optimization via Frank-Wolfe Algorithms”. Plenary at 22nd Conference on Advances in Continuous Optimization (EUROPT) (Southampton, UK). [slides]
- 06/2025: (general) “Cargo-Kult trifft auf große Sprachmodelle: Entmystifizierung von KI? (in German)”. Talk at Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften (Berlin, Germany).
- 06/2025: (general) “From Abstract Math to Applied AI”. Keynote at New Mathematics for AI Innovation (Berlin, Germany).
- 05/2025: (technical) “The Pivoting Framework: Frank-Wolfe Algorithms with Active Set Size Control”. Talk at AISTATS 2025 (Phuket, Thailand). [slides]
- 03/2025: (technical) “The colorful world of Optimization”. Plenary at VIASM Spring School and Workshop on Variational Analysis and Optimization 2025 (Hanoi, Vietnam). [slides]
- WS/2024: Discrete Optimization and Machine Learning (seminar)
Recent Blog Posts
- 05/2025: A New Default Open-Loop Step-Size for Frank-Wolfe?
- 02/2025: FrankWolfe.jl: An Update on the Julia Package
- 02/2025: Estimating Rare Probabilities
- 11/2024: On the Byzantine-Resilience of Distillation-Based Federated Learning
- 11/2024: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Watermarks, Transferable Attacks and Adversarial Defenses
Select Outreach
- 11/2024: El aprendizaje automático ayuda a atacar problemas matemáticos clásicos (Machine learning helps attack classical mathematical problems). El Pais: Café y teoremas. (Newspaper (Spanish))
- 11/2024: Zukunftsforum KI. IHK Berlin. (Panel Discussion (German))
- 10/2021: Improve the World with Maths?. Humboldt Forum: Discourse, Science and Humanities. (Talk + Discussion (German))
- 05/2021: Durch KI verhandene Ressourcen effizienter nutzen. Aufbruch Ausgabe 28. (Interview (German))
- 12/2020: Folge 7: „Trendsetter Internet? Angstmacher KI? Folgen der Digitalisierung“. Brain City Berlin. (Podcast (German))
News
- Summer 2025: Sébastien Designolle started an Inria Starting Faculty Position in the QINFO group based at the École Normale Supérieure in Lyon. Congratulations!
- 06/2025: Together with Gioni Mexi, Deborah Hendrych, Sébastien Designolle, and Mathieu Besançon, we won the Land-Doing MIP Computational Competition 2025.
- 05/2025: Cluster of Excellence MATH+ got extended for another 7 years.
- 03/2025: Received Science Prize of the Association for Pediatric Orthopedics (VKO) for “Feature Engineering for the Prediction of Scoliosis in 5q-Spinal Muscular Atrophy”, T.-L. Vu-Han (lead author), V. Sunkara, R. Bermudez-Schettino, J. Schwechten, R. Runge, C. Perka, T. Winkler, S. Pokutta, C. Weiß, M. Pumberger.
- 10/2024: Elected Chair of the Cluster of Excellence MATH+ together with Claudia Schillings and Andrea Walther.