International AI collaboration “We can’t wait to combine our expertise” The Helmholtz International Lab "Causal Cell Dynamics" is now collaborating with the AI research institute Mila from Canada. The goal: to understand cellular processes in the development of diseases with the help of Big Data and AI. Fabian Theis and Yoshua Bengio explain the idea. Yoshua, you are the founder and director of the with approximately 500 researchers in the field of AI. What is it that Fabian and his team can offer that you don’t have already? Yoshua Bengio: We are one of the biggest AI research institutions in the world. We conduct research using artificial intelligence in many different fields where machines or humans can learn from data or from interacting with their environment, and we are best known for our work in deep learning and reinforcement learning. Machine learning is relevant in many areas, for example biomedical research, robotics, natural language processing, cognitive neuroscience, and computer vision. One major focus is of course on the design and analysis of algorithms, and the development of responsible AI applications, i.e., for the benefit of humanity. Fabian and his team are specialized and experienced in cellular dynamics, which raises fundamental AI research questions around how to model cause and effect, one of the hottest topics in machine learning these days. What makes it even more interesting for us is the approach taken by the Institute of Computational Biology team led by Fabian, focusing on single cell technologies.