About This Newsletter

Dear RWTH AI community,

This newsletter is meant to keep you informed on relevant activities around AI at the RWTH University. The newsletter also provides an excellent platform to showcase your success, share your results, and promote your events. We've had numerous contributions and suggestions, so keep up the good engagement. If you are missing something or have any other ideas how this newsletter could be even more interesting and useful to our AI community, please send an email to contact@ai.rwth-aachen.de

As usual, we would appreciate it if you could forward this information to your research groups, your students, and other interested parties. To receive the newsletter, please join the mailing list by sending an email with the subject “subscribe” to ai-center-interest-join@lists.rwth-aachen.de

We are looking forward to collaborating with you all on some exciting topics and hearing your feedback.

QUICK ACCESS

Announcements/News

Meet The Members

Project/Paper Of The Month

Events

Awards/Prizes/Recognitions

Open Calls

External Events

External Open Calls

Announcements/News

NRW will bring Computer Science and the AI Center Under One Roof

The state of North  Rhine‑Westphalia will invest up to €180 million from its “Plan for Good Infrastructure” to build a new computer science facility at RWTH Aachen. The building will house the university’s AI Center, bringing it closer to existing computer science infrastructure on Ahornstraße. It will accommodate roughly 400 staff members and nearly 5,000 students, with real‑world labs and co‑working spaces to foster collaboration and applied research. The funding is presented as a shift from the region’s coal‑based past to a knowledge‑based future, emphasizing AI’s strategic importance and aiming to strengthen NRW’s attractiveness for top talent. Science Minister Ina Brandes announced the commitment on 26/03/26 during a visit to RWTH’s AI Center. While on site, the minister toured the current AI Center at Theaterstraße and learned about a selection of ongoing research projects.

Christopher Morris has been named Professor of the RWTH Chair of Machine Learning on Graphs

Morris entered machine learning almost by accident. After his master’s at TU Dortmund, a DFG‑funded PhD project drew him from pure theory into applied research - a field that was still a niche ten years ago. “It was so fascinating I couldn't resist,” he recalls.
He earned his doctorate with top honors at Dortmund, spent time at Stanford, and then moved to Canada for postdoctoral work at the Polytechnic University of Montreal and McGill, two of the world's AI hubs. “Canada is a global leader in machine learning,” he notes, adding with a smile that the country is also beautiful.
In 2022 Morris joined RWTH Aachen as a junior professor and, in December 2025, secured a tenured chair in Computer Science. Asked about AI’s future, he admits it's hard to predict - large-language models may soon plateau, or breakthrough advances could appear - but he finds the uncertainty energising. “Every new discovery raises fresh theoretical questions,” he says, and his commitment to cracking the last-mile delivery puzzle remains unwavering.

Meet The Members

Anke Schmeink

Area of Expertise:

Information theory and data analyics

Ancillary activities:

Editor for IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications

Hobbies:

Spending time outdoors (running, hiking, skiing), travelling with my family

Contact:

mail to: schmeink@inda.rwth-aachen.de

Project/Paper Of The Month

Events

Save the date for a 24+ hour hackathon featuring challenges from Wasteer | 21-22/05/26

Ready to make waste-to-energy operations smarter, more data-driven, greener? This is exactly what Wasteer aims for. hessian. AI & Developer Student Club Darmstadt present a 24+ hour hackathon featuring challenges from Wasteer. During this hackathon, teams will work with real industrial data to optimise the storage, mixing, and preparation of waste for incineration. Participants will tackle one of the most critical aspects of modern waste-to-energy systems: intelligent waste bunker management to maintain stable operations, maximise energy yield, and comply with regulations.

What to expect:

• 50 selected participants working in teams
• 2 exciting challenges with attractive prizes
• Hands-on experience with real-world industrial data
• A unique opportunity to combine creativity, data science, and industrial expertise

Registration opens after Easter (stay informed on our LinkedIn)

This hackathon is realised with the kind support of the JUPITER AI Factory.

Awards/Prizes/Recognitions

Open Calls

We didn’t receive any information on open calls. If you have any suggestions for the next newsletter, please contact the editorial team by email: contact@ai.rwth-aachen.de

External Events

External Open Calls

ERC Calls: PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANTS

The complete call you can find here.

EU-call: Generative AI for smarter CCAM: enhancing perception, decision-making, and validation

The complete call you can find here.

EU-call: Enhanced resilience in multimodal passenger transport through dig. techn._generative_disccriminative AI

The complete call you can find here.

If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please send an email with the subject “unsubscribe" to contact@ai.rwth-aachen.de

Please also follow us on LinkedIn