📈 This shouldn’t be a competition, ML + OR, 7 ways AI will reshape OR
Local Optimum: short, imperfect-yet-useful ideas - Edition #15
Welcome to a new edition of Local Optimum: a short, imperfect-yet-useful collection of ideas related to optimization, decision-making, and applied Operations Research.
Let’s dive in! 🪂
1) ⚔️ This shouldn’t be a competition
The recent FICO post showing Xpress edging out DeepMind’s AlphaEvolve on several open maths benchmarks is impressive in its own right.
It also reminds us we’re not really watching a head-to-head ‘battle’, but two different paradigms at work.
AlphaEvolve is an end-to-end AI agent that evolves code with almost no human guidance, while Xpress is a purpose-built global-optimization engine that shines once an analyst has translated the real-world question into a mathematical model.
In practice, these approaches are complementary: let the solver deliver certifiably optimal answers when you can formalize the problem, and let AI heuristics explore the unknown when you can’t, or when you want to minimize human time in the loop.
Seeing both push the frontier is good news for everyone in Operations Research.
2) 💍 ML + OR
The marriage between Machine Learning and Mathematical Optimization is here to stay.
There are multiple proofs of that, and one of them is this one about AI4OPT, where Junyang Cai, a PhD student. He says:
I develop data-driven strategies that guide the solver’s internal decision-making. By learning from historical problem data and solver behavior, our machine learning models can predict effective branching strategies and other key actions. This leads to a more informed and efficient search process, reducing overall solution times.
Read the full email by clicking in the image (and consider subscribing to AI4OPT newsletter!):
3) 🔮 7 ways AI will reshape OR
I’ve been thinking a lot about how fast things are moving lately. Agentic AI, LLMs writing code, solvers inside chatbots... It’s tempting to believe that everything old is about to become obsolete.
But here’s the thing: some ideas age better than others.
In February, I published my predictions for how AI will transform Operations Research. Looking back, none of them feel outdated. In fact, the world seems to be moving right toward them.
So if you missed it, here’s your chance to catch up:
Deep Learning to the rescue of Linear Programming
Almost two months ago, I introduced you to how to integrate Deep Learning into OR pipelines.
One thing I said back then was:
But if I like one approach, it's using Graph Neural Networks for optimization problems. They have a lot of potential because we can model many optimization problems as graphs.
(spoiler alert: in a few weeks, we'll explore that option here in Feasible)
Now the time has come, and I’m pretty happy to say it’s a collaborative article!
We’ll cover:
🔌 Understanding the power grid and its optimization problems
🕸️ The challenge of Linear Programming and how Graph Neural Networks help
⚡ Performance gains in real-world problems
If you want to understand how to use GNNs to warmstart Linear Programming problems, this will be useful. See you Monday!
And that’s it for today!
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Have a nice day ahead ☀️
Borja.
