AI + Astronomy: Models, Data, Discovery

Europe/Zurich
GA 321 (Bernoulli Center, EPFL Campus)

GA 321

Bernoulli Center, EPFL Campus

GA Building - Station 5 - 1015 Lausanne
Description

We are delighted to invite you to the Second International Workshop on AI + Astronomy: Models, Data, Discovery, a two-day event dedicated to exploring how artificial intelligence is reshaping astronomy. After a successful workshop that took place last year in Hangzhou, China, the second edition will take place this year at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. 

The workshop will highlight the transformative role of large-scale AI models in enabling data-intensive scientific discovery.

The program will feature plenary and parallel sessions covering:

·       Advances in AI and large models for astronomy

·       Applications to spectral surveys, imaging, and time-domain data

·       Computing, simulations, and data-intensive astronomy

·       Instrumentation and frontier technologies

·       International collaboration and open science

The main workshop will be held from 31 March-1 April 2026 at the Bernoulli Center at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. Hosted by EPFL Laboratory of Astrophysics in collaboration with the Zhejiang Lab. Leading scholars  will gather to exchange ideas and explore the latest progress and future directions at the intersection of AI and astronomy.

There will be a pre-workshop session at ETHZ Honggerbeg campus in Zurich on Monday March 30. The participants will visit and have a presentation of the ETHZ AI center, and of the CSCS computing platform. This session is mostly dedicated for our international guest.

On April 2nd, 2026, a visit of the Jungfraujoch High Altitude Research Station near Grindelwald, Switzerland will be organised for our international guests.

Participants
    • 10:00 11:00
      Welcome Coffee 1h ETHZ

      ETHZ

    • 11:00 12:00
      ETHZ: Cosmology meeting ETHZ

      ETHZ

    • 12:00 13:30
      Lunch 1h 30m ETHZ

      ETHZ

    • 13:30 14:30
      ETHZ: AI Center meeting ETHZ

      ETHZ

    • 14:30 15:00
      Discussion Break 30m ETHZ

      ETHZ

    • 15:00 18:00
      Travel to Lausanne 3h
    • 08:30 09:15
      Registration and Welcome Coffee 45m Main hall

      Main hall

    • 09:15 10:30
      Welcome & Opening Session: Welcome GA 321

      GA 321

      Bernoulli Center, EPFL Campus

      GA Building - Station 5 - 1015 Lausanne
      • 09:15
        Welcome Introduction 5m
        Speaker: Jean-Paul Kneib (EPFL)
      • 09:20
        Official Welcome from the Dean of the School of Engineering (STI) 10m
        Speaker: Prof. Adrian Ionescu (EPFL)
      • 09:30
        Presentation of Zhejiang Lab¶ 20m
        Speakers: Dr Jian Wang (Zhejiang Lab), Dr Junhui Shi (Zhejiang Lab)
      • 09:50
        Presentation of the EPFL AI Center 20m
        Speaker: Agnieszka Kapalka (EPFL AI Center)
      • 10:10
        Open foundation models - Learnings from Apertus 20m
        Speaker: Martin Jaggi (EPFL)
    • 10:30 11:00
      Coffee Break 30m GA 331

      GA 331

    • 11:00 12:20
      Welcome & Opening Session: Introduction to AI GA 321

      GA 321

      Bernoulli Center, EPFL Campus

      GA Building - Station 5 - 1015 Lausanne
      • 11:00
        How AI Accelerates Research and Engineering in Nuclear Fusion 20m
        Speaker: Gilles Fourestey (EPFL)
      • 11:20
        Aliyun Foundation Model 20m
        Speaker: Simon Boehmer (Alibaba Cloud)
      • 11:40
        Physics-Informed Graph Neural Networks for Dynamical Systems 20m
        Speaker: Olga Fink (EPFL)
      • 12:00
        The Agency of Art: Bridging Complex Science and Society through Embodied AI 20m
        Speaker: Yuan Martschnig-Wei (Creative AI Foundation)
    • 12:20 13:40
      Lunch (Group picture) 1h 20m GA 331

      GA 331

    • 13:40 15:00
      Session 1: Astronomical Data GA 321

      GA 321

      Bernoulli Center, EPFL Campus

      GA Building - Station 5 - 1015 Lausanne
      • 13:40
        AI tools for VIRUP and astrophysical visualization 20m
        Speaker: Florian Cabot (EPFL)
      • 14:00
        AI in studies of star and stellar populations with CSST data 20m
        Speaker: Chao Liu (National Astronomical Observatories, CAS)
      • 14:20
        Transformers and Deblending for Efficient Strong‑Lens Discovery in Euclid 20m
        Speaker: Karina Rojas (FHNW)
      • 14:40
        GGSL-UNet: A Deep Learning Framework for Efficient De-blending and Modeling of Galaxy-Galaxy Strong Lensing Systems 20m
        Speaker: Dr Ruibiao Luo (Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
    • 15:00 15:30
      Coffee Break 30m GA 331

      GA 331

    • 15:30 17:05
      Session 2: Astronomical Data (continued) GA 321

      GA 321

      Bernoulli Center, EPFL Campus

      GA Building - Station 5 - 1015 Lausanne
      • 15:30
        Radio-Interferometric Image Reconstruction with Denoising Diffusion Restoration Models 20m
        Speaker: Emma Tolley (EPFL)
      • 15:50
        LoTSSDR2 diffuse radio emission classification 20m
        Speaker: Markus Bredberg (EPFL)
      • 16:10
        AI Based compression for radio-astronomy data 20m
        Speakers: Adrien Devresse (EPFL), Mrs Xiaoran Chen (EPFL)
      • 16:30
        Physics-Informed Deep Learning for Telescope Beam Deconvolution 20m
        Speaker: Shulei Ni (Zhejiang Lab)
      • 16:50
        New optimizers for solar physics 15m
        Speaker: Brandon Panos (FHNW)
    • 17:05 17:15
      Wrap-up of the day 10m GA 321

      GA 321

      Bernoulli Center, EPFL Campus

      GA Building - Station 5 - 1015 Lausanne
    • 17:15 18:30
      Campus Visit I 1h 15m
    • 09:00 10:20
      Session 3: Astronomical Large Models GA 321

      GA 321

      Bernoulli Center, EPFL Campus

      GA Building - Station 5 - 1015 Lausanne
    • 10:20 10:50
      Coffee Break 30m GA 331

      GA 331

    • 10:50 12:20
      Session 4: Astronomical Large Models (continued) GA 321

      GA 321

      Bernoulli Center, EPFL Campus

      GA Building - Station 5 - 1015 Lausanne
      • 10:50
        AI foundation models for large-scale structure cosmology 20m
        Speaker: Tomasz Kacprzak (Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz FHNW)
      • 11:10
        Improving cosmological inference with simulation based inference 15m
        Speaker: Antoine Rocher (EPFL)
      • 11:25
        How Can LLMs Reshape Astronomy Research? 20m
        Speaker: Zechang Sun (Tsinghua University)
      • 11:45
        Advancing Cosmology through Artificial Intelligence 20m
        Speaker: Huanyuan Shan (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, CAS)
      • 12:05
        From Photoionisation Models to Machine Learning: Interpreting Star Formation and AGN in High-Redshift Galaxies 15m
        Speaker: Adele Plat (EPFL)
    • 12:20 13:20
      Lunch 1h GA 331

      GA 331

    • 13:20 14:40
      Session 5: Astronomical Large Models (continued) GA 321

      GA 321

      Bernoulli Center, EPFL Campus

      GA Building - Station 5 - 1015 Lausanne
      • 13:20
        Aligning Astrophysical Images with Complementary Data Modalities 20m
        Speaker: Erica Lastufka (UNIGE)
      • 13:40
        Spectral Foundation Model for Astronomical Surveys 20m
        Speakers: Aurélien Verdier (EPFL), Shengyu HE (EPFL)
      • 14:00
        OneAstronomy: A Domain-Specific Large Language Model for Astronomical Science and Telescope Automation 20m
        Speaker: Kuang Mao (Zhejiang Lab)
      • 14:20
        OneAstronomy: A Physics-Consistent Foundation for Understanding the Multimodal Universe 20m
        Speaker: Dr Chiye Li (Zhejiang Lab)
    • 14:40 15:15
      Discussion on Future Collaboration (roundtable) GA 321

      GA 321

      Bernoulli Center, EPFL Campus

      GA Building - Station 5 - 1015 Lausanne
    • 15:15 15:20
      Closing Remarks 5m GA 321

      GA 321

      Bernoulli Center, EPFL Campus

      GA Building - Station 5 - 1015 Lausanne
    • 15:30 17:30
      Campus Visit II 2h
    • 06:40 09:35
      Travel to Grindelwald Terminal 2h 55m
    • 09:35 10:45
      Travel to Jungfraujoch 1h 10m
    • 10:45 12:15
      Presentation of the Jungfraujoch research station 1h 30m Jungfraujoch

      Jungfraujoch

      Speaker: Prof. Silvio Decurtins (President HFSJG)
    • 12:15 13:30
      Lunch 1h 15m Jungfraujoch

      Jungfraujoch

    • 13:30 15:00
      Visit of the Sphinx Observatory 1h 30m Jungfraujoch

      Jungfraujoch

    • 15:00 16:00
      Free Time - Discussion 1h Jungfraujoch

      Jungfraujoch

    • 16:00 17:00
      Return travel to Grindelwald 1h
    • 17:00 20:00
      Return travel to Lausanne 3h