This project aims to address fundamental research on the synergies between optimization and machine learning, and applications in industry.

The fundamental research is concerned with a bidirectional influence between optimization and Machine Learning (ML) problems, mostly applied to Deep Neural Networks (DNN). Training a DNN amounts essentially to solving an optimization problem for the cost function. It is well known that the use of optimization algorithms to help designing highly accurate learning models can lead to excellent results. Perhaps more novel is the converse idea: the application of ML techniques as an alternative method to solve complex optimization problems in reduced times, exploiting parallelism and the other available resources in different architectures (traditional ones, co-processors, low-power devices, etc.).

The two PIs of the project are an applied mathematician and a computer scientist, both having a consolidated and proven track of research achievements, international experience and projects with the industrial sector. This will enable them to tackle the goals of the project, (ranging from the mathematical details of ML algorithms to their scalability and computational aspects of their implementation) from an interdisciplinary point of view, benefitting from each other’s complementary expertise.

Regarding the practical applications of the project, two industrial problems proposed by technological companies based in the region of Cadiz will be addressed.

• The problem proposed by GEN is to design sustainable solutions for efficient urban mobility.
• The company Eléctrica de Puerto Real proposes several problems related to predicting energy consumption in households with data coming from smart meters.

In order to be able to carry on these researchs a multidisciplinary team have been formed. Some of them are part of GOAL research group at Universidad de Cádiz.

Acknowledgements: This work has been co-financed by the European Union under the 2014-2020 ERDF Operational Programme and by the Department of Economic Transformation, Industry, Knowledge, and Universities of the Regional Government of Andalusia. Project reference : FEDER-UCA18-108393.

The two IPs and most members of the research and working groups belong to GOAL research group.