This year’s Max Planck Advanced Course on the Foundations of Computer Science (ADFOCS) focused on theoretical aspects of machine learning
The guiding question of the 2026 edition of the summer school was: “What foundational theoretical knowledge should a machine learning researcher have?” From August 10 to 14, participants gathered in Saarbrücken to explore this question.
Participants of ADFOCS 2026. Photo: MPI-INF/Bertram Somieski
This year’s core lectures were given by Prof. Kasper Green Larsen (Aarhus University), Prof. Ankur Moitra (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Institute for Advanced Study), and David P. Woodruff (Carnegie Mellon University and Google).
ADFOCS is aimed at researchers at graduate level and above and teaches in-depth knowledge in annually varying areas of theoretical computer science through lectures and practical workshops. This year, around 110 scientists from various European countries, as well as the USA, Canada, and China, participated in the event on the topic of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
The 2026 Advanced Course on the Foundations of Computer Science was organized by Guy Even, Rex Lei, and Director Danupon Nanongkai from the Algorithms and Complexity department at MPI for Informatics. The summer school is part of the activities of the International Max Planck Research School on Trustworthy Computing (IMPRS TRUST).
/pzs