On the 31st March, our editorial team headed to the Royal Society for AI for Science . This day-long conference explored how AI is changing the nature of scientific discovery, and was hosted by the Fundamental Research team from the Alan Turing Institute. Nestled in a terrace of 19th century townhouses along the banks of the Thames, the Royal Society looks as grand as the names who have passed through its doors throughout the years. Prof Jason McEwen, Chief Scientist for the Turing Institute, opened the event with an insightful talk on the nature of scientific revolution, and how the bidirectional relationship between AI and science could spark the next one. Then, Prof Anna Scaife from the University of Manchester spoke on the use of foundation models for astronomical discovery.

Welcome to our monthly digest, where you can catch up with any AIhub stories you may have missed, peruse the latest news, recap recent events, and more. This month, we meet PhD students and early-career researchers, find out how machine learning is used for particle physics discoveries, cast an eye over the latest AI Index Report, and watch a robot beating elite players at table tennis. In an article published in Nature this month, Sony AI introduced Ace, a table tennis robot that has beaten professional players in competitive matches. The system combines event-based vision sensors and a control system based on model-free reinforcement learning, as well as state-of-the-art high-speed robot hardware. The ninth edition of the Artificial Intelligence Index Report was published on 13 April 2026 .

The proofs that earned EPFL professor Maryna Viazovska the Fields Medal in 2022 have reached a new milestone: their complete formalization by computer, achieved through a collaboration between mathematicians and artificial intelligence tools. In 2016, Maryna Viazovska solved the sphere packing problem in dimension 8, proving that the E lattice constitutes the densest possible arrangement. Shortly after, together with collaborators, she established an analogous result in dimension 24 using the Leech lattice. Her method provided an elegant solution to a problem studied for centuries, with close ties to applied fields such as error-correcting codes. For this major contribution, Viazovska was awarded the Fields Medal in 2022, the highest distinction in mathematics.

The latest interview in our series with the AAAI/SIGAI Doctoral Consortium participants features Deepika Vemuri who is working on interpretability and concept-based learning. We found out more about the two aspects of concept-based models that she's been researching. Could you tell us a bit about your PhD - where are you studying, and what is the topic of your research? I'm a PhD student from IIT Hyderabad working with Dr Vineeth N Balasubramanian, supported by the PMRF Fellowship. Most current state-of-the-art models are black boxes, which is especially problematic when these models are used in high-stakes applications like criminal justice and healthcare, where people's lives depend on the decisions of these models.

Welcome to our monthly digest, where you can catch up with any AIhub stories you may have missed, peruse the latest news, recap recent events, and more. This month, we delved into the history of RoboCup, learned about time series, studied multiplicity, and found out more about Theory of Mind. RoboCup is an international competition that promotes and advances robotics and AI through the challenges presented by its various leagues. We got the chance to sit down with Professor Manuela Veloso, one of RoboCup's founders, to find out more about how it all started, how the community has grown over the years, and the vision for the future. What we've learned from 25 years of automated science, and what the future holds We're excited to launch a new series, where we'll be speaking with leading researchers to explore the breakthroughs driving AI and the reality of the future promises, to give you an inside perspective on the headlines.

If AI continues to evolve--as it surely will--so too will the labels attached to those who work in it.

Daniel Whiteson is a particle physicist, who uses machine learning and statistical tools to analyze high-energy particle collisions. He is also a dedicated science communicator, having published books and comics, and is co-host of a science podcast. In his invited talk at the Fortieth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-26), Daniel shared insights on both these aspects of his career. Daniel works at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, primarily looking at proton-proton collisions, which occur at 13 TeV, a massive 13,000 times the energy stored in a single proton. The majority of collisions result in known particles, such as electrons or muons.

In recent years, the Prairies have seen bigger swings in climate conditions -- very wet years followed by very dry ones. That makes an already unpredictable landscape even harder to forecast, with real consequences for flood preparedness and water quality. The challenge is the landscape itself. Much of the Canadian Prairies sit within the Prairie Pothole Region, a landscape dotted with millions of shallow wetlands and depressions. Water doesn't simply run downhill into a stream, it is stored first.

The ninth edition of the Artificial Intelligence Index Report was published on 13 April 2026. Released on a yearly basis, the aim of the document is to provide readers with accurate, rigorously validated, and globally-sourced data to give insights into the progress of AI and its potential impact on society. The 2026 AI Index Report comprises nine chapters, covering: research and development, technical performance, responsible AI, economy, science, medicine, education, policy and governance, and public opinion. AI capability is accelerating and reaching more people than ever. Model performance continues to improve against benchmarks, and 80% of university students now use generative AI.

This post contains a list of the AI-related seminars that are scheduled to take place between 2 April and 31 May 2026. All events detailed here are free and open for anyone to attend virtually. What Do Our Benchmarks Actually Measure? Vukosi Marivate (University of Pretoria) University of Michigan Zoom link is here . Optimization Over Trained Neural Networks: What, Why, and How? Thiago Serra Azevedo Silva (University of Iowa) Association of European Operational Research Societies To receive the seminar link, sign up to the mailing list .