HAICON 2026 – AI for Science Conference

Malek and Adea attended the Helmholtz AI conference – HAICON 2026 – where they presented posters of the lab’s recent accepted papers at ISBI 2026: MRIQT, and MICCAI 2026: K-MaT and PromptGate. Beyond presenting the posters, Malek and Adea attended hands-on workshops, held during the first day, on Foundation Models, Causal AI and Quantum Machine Learning where the organizers introduced the topics, presented the latest trends and gave tutorials. They participated in the side-coffee networking events, connecting with fellow researchers , engaging in interesting talks about Agentic AI, Image Analysis and the use of LLMs for Sciences. The AI World Café featured speedy group discussions on hot-topics and concerning issues on AI like puplishing in the age of AI, ML models lifecycle management beyond research and the next wave of AI. These interactions are essential for advancing interdisciplinary research and ensuring that scientific innovations can be translated into meaningful real-world impact. Highlights of the conference included keynote talks by Pierre Gentine (Columbia University), Daniel Rückert (Technical University of Munich), and Cordelia Schmid (Inria and Google). Their presentations covered AI applications in climate science, medicine, and robotics, respectively, showcasing the breadth of AI-driven innovation and its growing role in advancing scientific research. In the last day, Malek and Adea were invited to the State Reception at the Munich Residenz by the Deputy Bavarian Minister-President Hubert Aiwanger. Minister Aiwanger stressed on the importance of pushing the AI research while holding strong communication between the local community, politicians and scientists for better transparency, trust and economical value.