MCML Pitchtalks With Reply

On 22 May 2026, the Munich Center for Machine Learning (MCML) had the latest edition of its Industry Pitch Talks at Reply in Munich – bringing together MCML Junior Members, researchers, and representatives from Reply for a focused exchange on current developments in machine learning and their relevance to industrial application.
The Industry Pitch Talks series is one of MCML’s core transfer formats, designed to create a direct dialogue between excellent academic research and industry practice. Each edition takes place at the premises of a partner company, combining short research pitches by MCML Junior Members with insights into the host’s own AI work.

After a welcome by Reply, who provided an overview of their current activities in Robotics and Agentic AI, and a short introduction to MCML, three research pitches set the agenda for the afternoon. Johannes Oberreuter presented work on Quantum Machine Learning. Philipp Pfefferkorn introduced his research on Reference-Enhanced Learned Image Compression for Satellite Imagery. Jian Lan closed the pitch session with a talk on How Large Models Understand the Physical World? Diagnosing Vision-Language Models via Reasoning in Kinematic Physics.
The pitches were followed by an extended networking session over food and drinks, which gave participants the opportunity to continue the discussions in a more informal setting.
We thank Reply for their hospitality and our speakers and guests for the lively exchange. The MCML Industry Pitch Talks will continue throughout 2026 with further editions hosted by partner companies in the Munich ecosystem. Companies interested in hosting a future edition are warmly invited to get in touch.