news 2021

Researchers in EPFL's Digital and Cognitive Musicology Lab in the College of Humanities used an unsupervised machine learning model to 'listen to' and categorize more than 13,000 pieces of Western classical music, revealing how modes - such as major and minor - have changed throughout history. Many people may not be able to define what a minor mode is in music, but most would almost certainly recognize a piece played in a minor key.

An international team of scientists have developed a photonic processor that uses rays of light inside silicon chips to process information much faster than conventional electronic chips. The exponential growth of data traffic in our digital age poses some real challenges on processing power. And with the advent of machine learning and AI in, for example, self-driving vehicles and speech recognition, the upward trend is set to continue.

For the first time, researchers at ETH Zurich have successfully automated the modelling of turbulence. Their project relies on fusing reinforcement learning algorithms with turbulent flow simulations on the CSCS supercomputer "Piz Daint". The modelling and simulation of turbulent flows is crucial for designing cars and heart valves, predicting the weather, and even retracing the birth of a galaxy.