Machine learning represents an increasingly powerful way to find patterns in data and addressing complex predictive challenges. The field continues to make rapid strides and a wide range of applications, from search engines and genomics to medical diagnostics and computer vision. Having recognized the importance of this paradigm, both for Two Sigma’s business and for society at large, we support research and outreach in the field through sponsorship and engagement.
That’s why Two Sigma co-sponsored the 2016 International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), held this year in New York City. Several Two Sigma employees also attended the conference to learn about and share new developments in the field. The overriding topic at the ICML this year was deep learning, a branch of the field that uses artificial neural networks to solve problems by learning feature representations from large amounts of data. In contrast, neural networks were barely represented at the ICML a decade ago.
The evolution of machine learning continues with the current focus on deep learning, and Two Sigma is excited to help pave the way for future innovations in the field. As a recent Two Sigma Insights post on deep learning noted, “Significant recent successes in applications such as image and speech recognition, and natural language processing, have helped fuel an explosion of interest in deep learning. And new research in the field is continuing to push the boundaries of applications, techniques, and theory.”