Wednesday 14 October 2026 at 11:00 hrs, First ICTP Colloquium on AI for Scientific Discovery by Sebastian Ehlert

[Infopoint]

Dear All,

You are most cordially invited to the *First ICTP Colloquium on AI for 
Scientific Discovery* by *Sebastian Ehlert *from Microsoft Research AI 
for Science.

The Colloquium will take place on *Wednesday 14 October 2026 in the 
Euler-Lagrange Lecture Hall at ICTP at 11:00* *hrs CET. * A coffee break 
will be served before the event, at *10:30* in the *Leonardo Building 
entrance hall.*

ICTP is launching a new series of colloquia dedicated to AI for 
scientific discovery that will explore how advances in artificial 
intelligence (AI) are transforming the way we approach fundamental 
scientific questions. The series will bring together leading researchers 
working at the intersection of AI and science, and highlight emerging 
methods, breakthroughs, and new opportunities for discovery across 
disciplines.

In this first colloquium, Sebastian Ehlert of Microsoft Research AI for 
Science will present research at the intersection of AI and the natural 
sciences, spanning materials discovery, molecular synthesis, 
biomolecular modelling, and electronic-structure theory. In particular, 
he will focus on Skala, a deep learning-based exchange-correlation 
functional that aims to make Density Functional Theory (DFT) 
systematically more accurate and predictive by learning directly from 
high-quality quantum-chemical data.

_About the speaker_
Sebastian Ehlert is a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research AI for 
Science, working on machine-learning approaches to DFT and highly 
accurate quantum chemistry at scale. His research includes the 
development of the Skala functional and the Microsoft Research Accurate 
Chemistry Collection (MSR-ACC). He also contributes to the development 
of extended tight binding (xTB) methods and actively maintains 
open-source scientific software.

The event will be livetreamed at:
http://ictp.it/livestream

For info, please check the following link: 
https://indico.ictp.it/event/11539

Looking forward to your participation.

With best regards,

Director's Office, ICTP
www.ictp.it