News — CWI Amsterdam

Snowflake’s co-founder Marcin Żukowski reflects on his time at CWI

“I knew it had amazing potential”, says Snowflake co-founder Marcin Żukowski, looking back on his time as a PhD researcher at CWI. In his PhD thesis, published in 2009, Żukowski described the blueprint of what would become two key technologies currently used by data storage and analytics provider Snowflake.

New workshop prepares companies for quantum age

QuSoft, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and Dutch banks launch a new monthly workshop, hosted by Marten Teitsma and Koen Groenland. The workshop addresses the need for companies to explore and develop quantum software and new applications.

New collaboration develops AI for cultural heritage

CWI starts a new collaboration around artificial intelligence with heritage and research institutions. In the Cultural AI Lab they will jointly explore the possibilities of AI for cultural research and raise AI’s awareness of the cultural context.

Multiple simulations best for Covid-19 predictions

Computer modelling used to forecast Covid-19 mortality contains significant uncertainty in its predictions, according to a new study led by researchers at UCL and CWI in the Netherlands. This was described in a news item in Nature on 13 November.

DIS group realized World’s First Volumetric Video Conference over a Public 5G Network

Together with their partners of VRTogether, CWI's DIS group showcased the world’s first live 3D video conference using point clouds, over a commercial 5G network at the VR days 2020.

Benjamin Sanderse wins Vidi grant to study complex fluid flows

To predict the output of a wind farm, the weather or the blood flow through a heart valve, accurate fluid flow models are needed. CWI researcher Benjamin Sanderse received a Vidi grant from NWO to develop a new generation of such models, based on discrete mathematics.

Tim Baarslag installed as Young Academy member

After being announced earlier as a new member of the Young Academy, Tim Baarslag has now been officially installed as an academy member. The Young Academy is a platform for young, internationally renowned scientists, hosted by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Together with nine other scientists, Tim was installed for a period of five years.

CWI introduces Computer Security research group

To make society, with its digital and physical infrastructures, a safer place, CWI introduces a new research group: Computer Security. Group leader is Marten van Dijk, who is very experienced in security research in both academia and industry.

Modeling and Optimization of Network Assisted Video Streaming

Jan Willem Kleinrouweler of CWI's DIS group, investigates how to optimise the quality of video streaming in his thesis.

Amsterdam coalition publishes special AI edition in New Scientist

To highlight the importance of AI to a broader public, the Amsterdam coalition ‘AI technology for people’ has published a special AI edition with New Scientist magazine. The AI edition showcases some of the research, teaching and innovation in AI being carried out across the Amsterdam region.

CWI DIS Group's 'Lit Lace' project featured at Dutch Design Week

'Lit Lace', a collaborative project between the CWI's Distributed & Interactive Systems Group and the British Smart Fabric Designers Company Sara+Sarah is being featured in this year's Dutch Design Week.

Distributed and Interactive Systems (DIS) Group Awarded Best Paper Award at IEEE TCSVT 2020

Groundbreaking work that explores how new 3D media formats can be used for real-time remote collaboration, has been honoured with an 2020 IEEE CASS award.

Pablo Cesar Appointed Professor of Human-Centered Multimedia Systems

Pablo Cesar has been appointed Professor of Human-Centered Multimedia Systems in the Department of Intelligent Systems (INSY) at TU Delft.

Breakthrough in energy efficient artificial intelligence

Thanks to a mathematical breakthrough, AI applications can become a hundred to a thousand times more energy efficient. This will make it possible to put much more elaborate AI in chips, enabling applications to run on a smartphone or smartwatch where before this was done in the cloud.

QuSoft celebrates five years of cutting-edge quantum algorithm and software research

After five years of close collaboration within QuSoft, CWI and the University of Amsterdam sign an agreement that consolidates their cooperation.

CWI works on Next Generation Internet

The Next Generation Internet POINTER fund has awarded CWI a grant to work on architectural renovation for the next generation Internet to replace BSD-style socket technology. The results will make a new generation of privacy-respecting, trustworthy and reliable Internet applications possible.

CWI PhD graduate founded record IPO company Snowflake

Data-warehouse company Snowflake went public this week, reaching an extraordinary market value of $70.4 billion, the largest IPO for a software company ever. Snowflake offers cloud-based data warehousing, whose data storage and query engine contain techniques pioneered in CWI’s Data Architectures group. One of the PhD graduates who developed that technology, former CWI researcher Marcin Żukowski, is co-founder of Snowflake.

Pablo Cesar awarded Dutch Prize for ICT research

Last week Pablo Cesar was awarded the Dutch Prize for ICT research during a festive ceremony. NWO released a video about Cesars work, in which he explains the focus and importance of his research.

Call for nominations: Van Wijngaarden Awards 2021

With the Van Wijngaarden Awards, CWI honours mathematicians and computer scientists who have made important contributions to their research field. A call for nominations is now open for the 2021 awarding.

Cells ‘walk’ to firm ground

A new mathematical model may explain how body cells get their shapes and what makes them move within a tissue. The model provides fundamental knowledge for applications in tissue engineering, amongst other things. The research was executed by Roeland Merks and Lisanne Rens, who were previously affiliated with CWI's Scientific Computing group.

Insight in Wood: dating wooden objects with 3D CT imaging

Together with the Rijksmuseum, researchers of CIW's Computational Imaging group investigate art objects with the help of our state of the art FleX-ray scanner. PhD student Francien Bossema explains how they proceed.

Léo Ducas wins ERC Starting Grant for quantum-safe cryptography

Léo Ducas from CWI's Cryptology Group is awarded an ERC Starting Grant of 1.5 million euro for research on quantum-safe cryptography. Most of today’s cryptographic methods will not be secure against attacks based on possible future quantum computers.

Best Poster Prize for Allard Hendriksen

Allard Hendriksen, researcher at CWI’s Computational Imaging group was awarded the Best Poster Prize at the “Mathematics of Machine Learning” symposium.

Ton de Kok appointed new director of CWI

The board of NWO-I, the institute organisation of NWO, appoints Prof. Ton de Kok as director of CWI. On 1 October 2020, De Kok will succeed the current director, Prof. Jos Baeten, who has led the institute since 2011 and will retire.

Gearing up for QCrypt 2020

The latest top results in quantum cryptography will be shared during the upcoming tenth anniversary edition of the QCrypt conference. Welcoming hundreds of visitors from science and industry, QCrypt 2020 will take place as an online event, jointly organized by CWI and the University of Amsterdam.

CWI researchers develop new mathematical framework to explain the emergence of large blackouts

The study shows that the statistical distribution of blackout sizes can be linked to city sizes. Bert Zwart and his colleagues indicate that it might be more effective to help consumers react to a blackout instead of performing network upgrades.

Leo Ducas (CWI Cryptology Group) involved in NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Finalists

In its process to develop the first cryptographic standard to protect sensitive electronic data against the threat of quantum computers, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced the finalists. Léo Ducas from CWI's Cryptology group is involved in several finalists of this standardization process.

Daniel Dadush and Samarth Tiwari receive Best Paper Award at CCC'20

Daniel Dadush and Samarth Tiwari from CWI's Networks and Optimization research group receive the Best Paper Award at the Computational Complexity Conference 2020 for their work 'On the Complexity of Branching Proofs'.

Balancing uncertainties in future electricity markets

The steady embrace of sustainable energy brings along new challenges. For example, the supply and demand of energy will fluctuate much more than with energy from fossil sources. PhD student Georgios Methenitis designed several ways to find a balance in this, providing building blocks of future energy markets that guarantee efficient outcomes for all users.

In Memoriam Willem van Zwet (1934-2020)

Prof. Willem van Zwet from Leiden University was advisor to the Mathematisch Centrum (now called CWI) from 1965-1984, chair of CWI’s Science Committee and Member of the Board. Throughout his career, Van Zwet played a key role in academic mathematical statistics in the Netherlands.