A recently announced new conference named “Innovations in Computer Science (ICS)” is drawing much attention and debate in the Theory of CS blogosphere (e.g. here, here, here, here, and here). The aspect that I found most interesting has not been discussed though: the new conference is in Beijing. I find the seriousness with which the community is discussing a non-North-American conference to be an interesting indication that the times are a changing. There has even been discussion whether the best “conceptual papers” will be sent to ICS or to the leading prestigious conferences FOCS and STOC. This is still just talk, but even such talk is quite an accomplishment for a conference that has not been born yet.
This seems to be another indication that China is starting to take its place in the innovative forefront of science, in this case theoretical computer science. Specifically, the ICS conference is being sponsored by the Institute of Theoretical Computer Science at Tsinghua University that has gained significant visibility in the last few years. Led by Turing award winner Andy Yao, supported by a distinguished international “chair professor team“, hosting an amazingly strong stream of visitors, recruiting top students, and, it seems, amply funded, the institute has certainly gained much attention very quickly. Their goals of scientific excellence seems quite clear from the slides of a talk on “Nurturing Talents in China” that Andy Yao gave last year.
Algorithmic game theory has already seen very significant fruit from this institute: the PPAD-completeness of Nash equilibria of two-player games due to Xi Chen and Xiaotie Deng — the celebrated final step in settling the complexity of the Nash problem! (And, many other publications as well)
I do not know whether China is investing similar effort in scientific areas other than Computer Science, nor whether they are making similar progress in other fields, but I certainly hope so. Clearly there remains a huge gap to close before China shoulders its fair share of the scientific progress of humanity. We can just hope that China does so with the same speed that it is moving on capturing its fair share of world GDP. (Yes, I know that China has a few other tiny problems like health, basic education, freedom, and other 3rd world problems, but let me worry about my own field first, and in any case, scientific progress will only help in advancing these as well.)
Turing's Invisible Hand 
I am concerned with your typo “nutoring” instead of “nurturing” — I think it would be hard to attract many top minds if they are going to be neutered!
tnx. fixed.
Origen, an early, ultra-prolific ‘top mind’ of Christian theology and exegesis, was rumored to have had himself castrated to improve his purity of focus. So don’t dismiss the idea too hastily… 😉
I too am excited about the rice of ITCS, with its promise of a big infusion of talented, highly motivated people into CS theory. I think the key challenge is to provide opportunities for international contacts, collaboration, and acculturation into the theory world for the students.
Andy Yao is clearly aware of this and making impressive efforts to bridge the distance thru chair professors, postdocs, student travel, etc. But are there perhaps further avenues to explore–say, more informal and web-based ones? I for one would enjoy meeting Chinese students online and talking theory…
i think this is a far too overoptimistic attitude that will backfire (in particular to those who help and assistance from abroad). China is full of publicity at its current state. Yes, it has the money to buy things but i feel awefully bad about those who have been bought and put aside once this wave of enthusiasm and thrill calms down and the wave of “patriotism” arises.
Are you aware of “current issues” over there ?
[…] See original here: Tsinghua Innovations in Computer Science « Algorithmic Game Theory […]
I don’t know what your point is. If the ICS is in North-America, then you would not argue so-called “scientific progress of humanity” and “health, basic education, freedom, and other 3rd world problems” ,right ?
But how come about American Iraqi and Afgan war ? And even worse the economic crisis caused by US ? Who should be blamed ? Can you tell us ?
Let the science be science, politics be politics. Mix them will not make your contribution or life better.
[…] working too diligently and not reading their theory blogs (see here, there, this, that, those and these.) Well, it seems like the PC have been busy: the accepted paper list and abstracts have just been […]
[…] accepted papers that I’ve seen in years. So Hooray for the conceptualists as well as to the organizers. Now we have to see if the actual papers match the promise of their abstract and […]
“Algorithmic game theory has already seen very significant fruit from this institute: the PPAD-completeness of Nash equilibria of two-player games due to Xi Chen and Xiaotie Deng – the celebrated final step in settling the complexity of the Nash problem! (And, many other publications as well)”
Yes, given the amount of funding that the place has received it is no surprise that one of many open problems were settled there. That would have been probably true at any other institute.
“(And, many other publications as well)” ? This comment is totally aloof. So now it’s quantity that matters? If you look closely enough then you might realize that most of these mini result papers lack in fundamental quality and creativity. But again, you seem to have been bought up and I wouldn’t want to hurt your PR stunt here. So please go ahead advertising.
[…] of the conference has drawn much discussion (here, here, here, here, here, and my own here), has had many cs/econ-related papers, and seems to have been quite interesting. This year too, […]
I don’t know what your point is. If the ICS is in North-America, then you would not argue so-called “scientific progress of humanity” and “health, basic education, freedom, and other 3rd world problems” ,right ?
But how come about American Iraqi and Afgan war ? And even worse the economic crisis caused by US ? Who should be blamed ? Can you tell us ?
Let the science be science, politics be politics. Mix them will not make your contribution or life better.
thanks
killing games
[…] on the forbidden city background in the picture below) sentiments and excitements about ITCS from this post from June […]
[…] from Beijing where I attended the Innovations in Computer Science (ICS 2011) Conference. The most remarkable thing about this conference for me is its venue: ITCS in Tsinghua university in Beijing. I have never been in China before, and my […]