Bilateral AI

As 2025 comes to a close, BilAI looks back on a highly successful and exciting year as a Cluster of Excellence funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF. From the first International BilAI PhD Summer School and the BilAI Industry Day — both set to return with even greater impact in 2026 — to numerous granted posters and papers at leading international flagship conferences and more than 100 publications, this year has been defined by strong scientific progress and visibility. 2025 also marked an important phase of growth for BilAI, as we welcomed new talents to our team, strengthened collaborations with industry partners, and created inspiring opportunities for exchange across disciplines and sectors. This carousel captures moments and people that shaped our journey this year. 👉 Click on one of the images for a closer look and swipe through BilAI 2025 in pictures. We thank our community, partners, and supporters for their trust and collaboration, and wish you a joyful holiday season and a successful start to 2026. Vienna University of Technology Johannes Kepler Universität Linz Technische Universität Graz Institute of Science and Technology Austria WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business) Universität Klagenfurt

How do we define well-behaved AI—and what does it take to achieve it in practice? 🤔 At the AI Festival at TU Wien, Bilateral AI explored in a workshop how AI systems can be aligned with human values, regulation, and societal expectations. 👇 Click on the image to read the whole story directly on LinkedIn. Johannes Kepler Universität Linz Vienna University of Technology Universität Klagenfurt Institute of Science and Technology Austria Technische Universität Graz WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business) TU Wien Informatics Austrian Science Fund FWF

🎉A strong start to 2026: 7 research papers accepted! 💪 We’re excited to share that our team will be presenting 7 research posters and one oral presentation at the 40th Annual Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Conference on Artificial Intelligence, taking place January 20–27, 2026, in Singapore. This recognition reflects our continued commitment to pushing the frontiers of artificial intelligence and contributing to the global AI community. Congratulations to all the researchers involved — your work continues to raise the bar. Vienna University of Technology Johannes Kepler Universität Linz Technische Universität Graz Institute of Science and Technology Austria WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business) Universität Klagenfurt Austrian Science Fund FWF Image Source: aaai.org - SumSym-Singapore

A fantastic reflection from our BilAI workshop “Towards Well-Behaved AI Systems: In Search of Alignment” – thank you to Jan A. Poczynek for the insightful post! 👏 We are proud that our BilAI Cluster’s outstanding researchers are leading such impactful workshops and engaging directly with industry in formats like this one. As co-hosts of the three-day AI Festival, we were especially pleased to dedicate the entire second day to industry collaboration — and this workshop was an integral and highlighted part of that day. 👉 Stay tuned: we’ll share a full recap of the workshop and the entire AI Festival soon!

✨ Strengthening Bilateral AI research at our Retreat 2025 ✨ On November 27–28, our BilAI community gathered in Vienna for two days of exchange, collaboration, and future-oriented Bilateral AI research. In Thursday’s Thematic Carousel Workshop, our researchers explored various bilateral approaches in key research areas like Trustworthy AI, Knowledge Graphs, Green AI, Optimization, Agentic AI, and AI in Biochemistry & Medicine. Dedicated time for the exchange of ideas sparked valuable discussions and new bilateral connections. On Friday, our PhD researchers took center stage, presenting their latest progress and showcasing the growing depth and diversity of research within BilAI. Their lightning talks and posters were a clear testament to the momentum building across our community. A big thank you to everyone who contributed with energy, insight, and curiosity! We look forward to continuing this journey together! Technische Universität Wien Johannes Kepler Universität Linz Technische Universität Graz Institute of Science and Technology Austria WU (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien) Universität Klagenfurt Austrian Science Fund FWF © BilAI – Slavata

We hope you all enjoyed the lunch break! Our first #EurIPS keynote today by Sepp Hochreiter is happening in just a few minutes! We are looking forward to his talk on "Sustainable, Low-Energy, and Fast AI Made in Europe"!

‼️ Sponsorship Opportunities at ESSAI 2026‼️ https://lnkd.in/dZAHnJft ⁉️ ⁉️ Why Become a Sponsor ⁉️ ⁉️ ⚡ Boost your visibility among top academics, talented students, and industry leaders ⚡ Build connections with outstanding AI talent and world-class researchers from Vienna and abroad ⚡ Highlight your AI innovations and the challenges you are addressing at an exclusive networking event ⚡ Show your strong commitment to fostering cutting-edge AI research and education ESSAI is the annual summer school on Artificial Intelligence held under the auspices of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI), and in 2026 it will encompass the 2nd International Summer School on Bilateral AI.  *ESSAI 2026 will be a central meeting place for early-stage researchers to deepen their knowledge in AI, broaden their perspectives, discuss current research, and build new connections.* The school is expected to attract over 400 participants, most of them early-stage researchers in Artificial Intelligence from various European universities and beyond. ESSAI 2026 will feature networking opportunities to strengthen collaboration between academia and industry, encouraging new research directions, joint projects, and the transfer of cutting-edge AI innovations into practical applications across diverse sectors. It will also provide a platform for established and emerging academia and industry players to discuss their ideas and technologies, while offering students the chance to connect with professionals, explore career opportunities, and gain insight into the evolving AI landscape. 

We are delighted to announce that Thomas Pock, one of our BilAI key researchers and professor of computer science at Technische Universität Graz, has been recognised as one of the world’s most highly cited researchers by the Clarivate for Academia & Government's Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). He is also one of only 54 researchers currently working in Austria to appear on this year’s list. This reflects the strong international resonance and scientific relevance of his work in AI, computer vision, and machine learning. We’re proud to have a researcher whose contributions are shaping global progress in the field — and driving our mission at Bilateral AI forward. Johannes Kepler Universität Linz Technische Universität Wien Universität Klagenfurt Institute of Science and Technology Austria Technische Universität Graz WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business) Austrian Science Fund FWF Image source: Charlotte Mayr - IVC

BilAI meets AI Austria for the fall edition of ML Meetup Graz! It was great to see so many different people from the Machine Learning (ML) Community in Graz join the recent ML Meetup, co-organised by Bilateral AI and AI Austria. We heard about a NeurIPS-approved bilateral approach to Reinforcement Learning from Bettina Könighofer, impressive Computer Vision applications for the improvement of MRI image construction from Thomas Pock and multimodal LLMs to improve the findability of archived video fragments from Werner Bailer. Afterwards, we had ample time for networking in an inspiring location, thanks to our host of the Schumpeter Laboratory, Christian Ramsauer. We are impressed by the great atmosphere at such meetups and highly recommend to join future editions of AI Austria Meetups - in Graz or elsewhere in the country! Also check out the Meetups by Women in AI Austria! Andreas Windisch Patrick Ratheiser Robert Legenstein Technische Universität Graz Austrian Science Fund FWF

This year, Bilateral AI will be represented at the 39th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems - NeurIPS 2025, with 21 accepted posters and 2 spotlight talks. The conference takes place from November 30 – December 7, 2025, in Mexico City and San Diego. We’re glad to see the work of our researchers included in the program and appreciate the effort that went into each submission. Congratulations to everyone involved, we look forward to meeting colleagues and collaborators at NeurIPS like Dan Alistarh, Bettina Könighofer, Christoph Lampert, Marco Mondelli, Günter Klambauer, Johannes Brandstetter, Sepp Hochreiter, Thomas Eiter, Andrei Panferov, Nikita Kalinin, Diyuan Wu, and many more. #BilAI #Neurips #conference #AI Johannes Kepler Universität Linz Technische Universität Wien Universität Klagenfurt Institute of Science and Technology Austria Technische Universität Graz WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business) Austrian Science Fund FWF Image source: Gobierno CDMX, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons