Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

Founded on 18 March 2011, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) is one of the 86 research institutes of the Max Planck Society. With locations in Stuttgart and Tübingen, it combines interdisciplinary research in the growing field of intelligent systems. Intelligent systems are becoming increasingly important in many areas of life – as virtual systems on the Internet or as cyber-physical systems in the physical world. Artificial intelligent systems can be used in a broad range of areas, for instance in autonomous vehicles or to diagnose and fight diseases.

Research departments

 * Empirical Inference (Bernhard Schölkopf), Tübingen
 * Haptic Intelligence (Katherine Kuchenbecker), Stuttgart
 * Perceiving Systems (Michael J. Black), Tübingen
 * Physical Intelligence (Metin Sitti), Stuttgart
 * Robotic Materials (Christoph Keplinger), Stuttgart
 * Social Foundations of Computation (Moritz Hardt), Tübingen

Current Research Groups

 * Autonomous Learning (Georg Martius), Tübingen
 * Bioinspired Autonomous Miniature Robots (Wenqi Hu), Stuttgart
 * Dynamic Locomotion (Alexander Badri-Sprowitz), Stuttgart
 * Embodied Vision (Jörg Stückler), Tübingen
 * Human Aspects of Machine Learning (Samira Samadi), Tübingen
 * Learning and Dynamical Systems (Michael Mühlebach), Tübingen
 * Neural Capture and Synthesis (Justus Thies), Tübingen
 * Organizational Leadership and Diversity (Ksenia Keplinger), Stuttgart
 * Physics for Inference and Optimization (Caterina De Bacco), Tübingen
 * Rationality Enhancement (Falk Lieder), Tübingen
 * Robust Machine Learning (Wieland Brendel), Tübingen

Current Max Planck Fellow Groups

 * Coordinative Intelligence (Thomas Hofmann), Tübingen/Zürich
 * Human-centric Vision & Learning (Otmar Hilliges), Tübingen/Zürich
 * Interactive Learning (Andreas Krause), Tübingen/Zürich
 * Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) (Klaas P. Prüssmann), Stuttgart/Zürich

Initiatives and networks
The Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and ETH Zurich cooperate in the research field of "Learning Systems". For this purpose, they have founded the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems (CLS). It is the first joint doctoral program of ETH Zurich and the Max Planck Society. Since the program was founded in 2015, 112 doctoral students and post-docs have been admitted as Fellows or Associated Fellows. CLS currently counts 50 directors, professors, and research group leaders among its members or associated members. In July 2019, the Max Planck Society and ETH Zurich agreed to extend the program's funding until 2025.

Since December 2016, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems is part of the research network Cyber Valley. Partners are the University of Stuttgart, the University of Tübingen, the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, the State of Baden-Württemberg and seven industrial partners: Amazon, BMW Group, Daimler AG, IAV GmbH, Porsche AG, Robert Bosch GmbH, and ZF Friedrichshafen AG. Cyber Valley is also supported by the Christian Bürkert Foundation, the Gips-Schüle Foundation, the Vector Foundation, and the Carl Zeiss Foundation.

Founded in 2018, the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) aims to strengthen Europe's role in global AI research.