Although modern Mixed-Integer Programming (MIP) solvers are capable of solving problems with tens of thousands of discrete and continuous variables and constraints, the problem sizes of optimization applications in the studied end-use cases continue to grow and may often involve millions of variables and increasingly complex constraints. The Institute approaches this task through the lens of learning to optimize, a new paradigm recognizing that many optimization problems are solved repeatedly on similar instances. Instead of designing solution methods as a challenge in algorithm design and mathematical insight, the Institute research leverages data-driven learning approaches to discover new algorithmic policies customized to the problem types and instance distributions. 

Publications

Related work

  • Learning combinatorial optimization algorithms over graphs.Hanjun Dai, Elias B Khalil*, Yuyu Zhang, Bistra Dilkina, and Le Song. In NeurIPS: Advances in neural information processing systems, 2017.

  • Learning to run heuristics in tree search. Elias B. Khalil, Bistra Dilkina, George L. Nemhauser, Shabbir Ahmed, and Yufen Shao. In IJCAI: International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence Organization, pages 659–666, 2017.

  • Learning to branch in mixed integer programming. Elias Khalil, Pierre Le Bodic, Le Song, George Nemhauser, and Bistra Dilkina.In AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2016.

Optimization Solvers Team

Bistra Dilkina
Bistra Dilkina
USC Site Director
University of Southern California
Leader
Santanu Dey
Santanu Dey
Georgia Institute of Technology
Co-leader
Alper Atamturk
Alper Atamturk
Berkeley Site Director
University of California, Berkeley
Sven Koenig
Sven Koenig
University of Southern California
George Nemhauser
George Nemhauser
Georgia Institute of Technology
Nick Sahinidis
Nick Sahinidis
Georgia Institute of Technology
Satish Thittamaranahalli
Satish Thittamaranahalli
University of Southern California
Pascal Van Hentenryck
Pascal Van Hentenryck
Director
Georgia Institute of Technology
Tuo Zhao
Tuo Zhao
Georgia Institute of Technology