Communications Chairs 2025

We are excited to announce this year’s NeurIPS Affinity Events! 

What are affinity groups?

At NeurIPS, affinity groups play a crucial role in promoting and supporting the ideas and voices of various communities that are defined by some axis of joint identity and raise awareness of issues that affect their members. In addition, they provide members of these affinity groups with increased opportunities to showcase their work, engage in discussions, and build connections during NeurIPS events, promoting diversity and inclusion at NeurIPS.

The main goals of affinity events are to 1) increase visibility of the work done by the members of the affinity group, 2) enable them to interact and discuss topics that are unique to each affinity group, and 3) encourage affinity group members to showcase their work and step into the NeurIPS community.  Affinity groups organize events with the main aim to encourage people to showcase their work and step into the NeurIPS community. 

What kind of events do affinity groups offer?

In contrast to regular workshops, affinity group workshops adopt a more open and flexible approach around topic areas, focusing on forming research communities within the affinity groups and bringing attention to the unique challenges faced by their members.

Additionally, affinity group socials serve as safe and welcoming spaces, allowing members to interact, socialize, and network in an inclusive environment. By fostering such social gatherings, NeurIPS supports the creation of a supportive community that values diversity and ensures that all voices are heard and valued. 

The affinity events at NeurIPS this year will take place throughout the conference week in San Diego. Moreover, there will be a Joint Affinity Event organized by Queer in AI, Latinx in ML and Women in ML in Mexico City.

What can NeurIPS attendees do to support affinity groups?

Participate! Actively attending and participating in panels and sessions for discussions about issues that are relevant to the affinity groups goes a long way in helping promote their cause. We request all members of our community to participate actively!

Affinity groups at NeurIPS 2025

We are delighted to announce the following affinity groups at NeurIPS 2025. Find out more below about their mission and the event they are organizing! 

Indigenous in AI/ML 

Indigenous in AI/ML is a networking and support group to connect Indigenous professionals and researchers working in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Our goal is to amplify the voices of Native, Aboriginal, and First Nations experts, inspire impactful work that benefits Indigenous communities, and challenge stereotypes in advanced technology fields.

In addition to fostering connections locally, regionally, and globally, our group educates the broader tech community about contemporary Indigenous issues relevant to AI and information technology. By cultivating an international network of Indigenous AI/ML professionals who inspire innovation and foster community empowerment, we can shape the future of technology through Indigenous knowledge and perspectives. The workshop will take place on Wednesday, December 3. For more details, please visit: www.indigigenius.org. 

LatinX in AI 

The LXAI Workshop has been a recognized part of the NeurIPS workshop lineup since 2018. This one-day event is designed to bring together faculty, students, researchers, and professionals for a day of collaboration and knowledge-sharing. The agenda includes invited talks from leading experts, oral and poster presentations of cutting-edge research, a panel discussion on key topics in the field, and a dedicated mentoring session.

Each year, we receive high-quality paper submissions from Latinx researchers worldwide, demonstrating the community’s growing strength and interest in AI. We aim to amplify Latinx voices and promote diverse perspectives to build a more inclusive and equitable AI research ecosystem. While our focus is on Latinx representation, the event is intentionally inclusive and open to all who are committed to advancing diversity in AI.

While all presenters will identify primarily as LatinX, everyone is invited to attend. The workshop will take place on Tuesday, December 2. For more details, please visit: https://www.latinxinai.org/neurips-2025 

Muslims in ML 

The 5th Muslims in ML (MusIML) workshop will be held at NeurIPS 2025, bringing together a vibrant community at the intersection of machine learning, fairness, and global Muslim expertise. This year’s program will feature research by Muslim scholars on Muslim communities and contexts, as well as competition proposals for social impact. With the panel theme on Responsible AI, we will explore the ethical, societal, and cultural dimensions shaping the future of intelligent systems. Attendees can also look forward to hearing from top speakers and thought leaders from across the Muslim AI/ML community, sharing cutting-edge ideas and experiences. The workshop continues MusIML’s mission to amplify diverse voices, provide mentorship and collaboration opportunities, and build AI that truly reflects and serves global communities. The workshop will take place on Tuesday, December 2. For more details, visit our website: musiml.org/events/2025-NeurIPS

New in ML

In an era deeply influenced by the rapid rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI, how can researchers effectively navigate their journey in machine learning and accelerate their growth to achieve impactful breakthroughs? The NewInML Workshop brings together emerging researchers and senior PhD students, connecting them directly with top experts and industry thought-leaders for profound insights and practical guidance. Covering topics from foundational skills to advanced research in LLMs and Generative AI, the workshop offers a unique opportunity to enhance your research capabilities and competitive edge. Join us to ride the wave of innovation and grow alongside the brightest minds in the ML community! NewInML will be held Dec 2nd. For more details, visit our official website: newinml.github.io

Queer in AI 

The Queer in AI workshop and social events at NeurIPS 2025 aim to create a vibrant and inclusive space that brings together queer students, researchers, and practitioners from across the globe to critically examine the impact of AI on the LGBTQIA* community. The workshop aspires to build a strong network of queer individuals, enable discussions at the intersection of AI and queer identities, and tackle issues of discrimination within the tech industry and society at large.

The Queer in AI workshop is dedicated to advancing equitable AI practices and contributing to a future where technology serves the needs of all communities. The workshop is committed to advocating for a more ethically grounded approach to AI development, ensuring that diverse voices are heard and valued in conversations about the future of technology. 

For more details, please visit the our official website: https://www.queerinai.com/neurips-2025 

Women in ML 

The WiML workshop celebrates the research of women and non-binary scholars in machine learning. Our goals are to:

(1) Highlight their contributions across the breadth of ML

(2) Create spaces to meet, exchange ideas through deep technical discussion, and spark future collaborations

(3) Provide junior researchers with a visible platform to present their work to peers and senior members of the community.

The program will feature invited talks by women and non-binary researchers, complemented by structured mentorship sessions focused on practical topics such as navigating publishing, shaping research agendas, and exploring academic and industry paths. Dedicated networking time will help attendees build lasting connections and identify collaboration opportunities. Accepted abstracts will be presented in a poster session, showcasing a wide range of projects and fostering constructive, interactive feedback.

Our workshop is designed to be welcoming to researchers at all stages and across subfields.

The workshop will take place on Tuesday, December 2. 

For more details, please visit the WiML website and our 2025 workshop website.

NeurIPS 2025 Affinity Chairs

Ioana Bica, Nezihe Merve Gürel, and Sarthak Arora

Today, we introduce the competitions that have been accepted at NeurIPS 2025 Competition Track. It seemed especially challenging this year given the number of quality submissions and the limited number that could be accepted compared to last year.  We finally selected a total of 18 very strong proposals, covering a wide range of areas and sub-disciplines.  Some of the competitions are completely new, and others are familiar to the NeurIPS community. 

This year will mark the ninth year of NeurIPS having a dedicated competition track. Whether this is the first time you’ve heard about NeurIPS competitions or you’re a grandmaster, this year’s cohort has something to offer for a variety of backgrounds, skill levels, and domain knowledge.  We hope you’ll take some time to look over this year’s exciting set of competitions, and encourage you to participate! 

Competitions have a valuable place in research and in solving complex problems.

As a participant, you will benefit from being exposed to a vibrant community! Indeed, they’re great for connecting to like-minded researchers, excellent for learning and resume building, and allow you to use your skills to have a real-world impact on important and challenging problems. After the challenges are complete, we hope that you continue collaborating with your former competitors to advance solutions for these important problems.

Similar to last year, there are two options for accepted competitions in 2025 to submit their post-competition analyses. One is to submit them as papers to the 2026 NeurIPS D&B track (next year), which involves a standard paper review process. The other is to submit to a PMLR volume dedicated to NeurIPS competitions.  

The NeurIPS 2025 program includes the following exciting competitions:

Physics and Scientific Computing

• FAIR Universe – Weak Lensing ML Uncertainty Challenge
• MyoChallenge 2025: Towards Human Athletic Intelligence
• Open Polymer Challenge: Leveraging Machine Learning for Polymer Informatics

Generative AI, Large Language Models, and Reasoning 

• CURE-Bench: Competition on Reasoning Models for Drug Decision-Making in Precision Therapeutics
• Early Training Scientific Knowledge and Reasoning Evaluation of Small Language Models
• MMU-RAG: the Massive Multi-Modal User-Centric Retrieval-Augmented Generation Benchmark
• DCVLR: Data Curation for Vision Language Reasoning
• The 2025 Google Code Golf Championship
• Challenge on LLMs for Embodied Agents

Multiagent Systems and Reinforcement Learning

• The MindGames Challenge: Theory-of-Mind and Game Intelligence in LLM Agents
• Mouse vs. AI: A Neuroethological Benchmark for Visual Robustness
• The PokéAgent Challenge: Competitive and Long-Context Learning at Scale

Signal Reconstruction and Enhancement

• Ariel Data Challenge 2025: Advancing Exoplanetary Signal Extraction for the Ariel Space Telescope
• Weather4cast 2025 – Multi-task Challenges for Weather & Pollution Pattern Prediction on the Road to Hi-Res Foundation Models
• EEG Foundation Challenge: From Cross-Task to Cross-Subject EEG Decoding
• The 2025 PNPL Competition: Speech Detection and Phoneme Classification in the LibriBrain Dataset
• SLC-PFM: Self-supervised Learning for Cancer Pathology Foundation Models

Responsible AI and Security

• The Competition of Fairness in AI Face Detection

We are very grateful to the colleagues that helped us with reviewing and selecting the competition proposals for this year.  We congratulate all the authors on their accepted proposals, and we thank everyone who submitted a proposal for their fantastic work. 

Please feel free to reach out to competition-chairs@neurips.cc if you have any questions or suggestions. 

Good luck to our organizers and participants; we look forward to seeing the competition outcomes at the conference! 

NeurIPS 2025 Competition Track Chairs 

Jes Frellsen, Kun Zhang, Tao Qin

Track Chairs: Barbara Engelhardt, Cynthia Rudin

This year at NeurIPS, we are initiating a Position Paper Track, following ICML 2024 and 2025 Position Paper Tracks. This is a time of accelerated development and deployment of methods designed in the NeurIPS community, where many people interact with AI in myriad ways – including high-stakes settings. Our position track is one way to ensure our community is fully engaged in the ways that our methods may impact the broader scientific community, and the world, through these critical discussions. 

Our CFP asks the questions we ourselves are grappling with: What is the field getting right? Getting wrong? How can our work be used for positive or destructive ends in government, military, medicine, public policy, or law? What are open problems that we should focus more on? Or less? We want to hear from the community that designed these methods. We encourage perspectives that stimulate discussion, and ask that authors engage with the complexities of AI methods in the wild. 

While we suggest many topics for submissions from the violation of copyright laws, the environmental cost of training some models, and appropriate benchmarks and validation processes, we encourage topics that we have not yet discussed as a community. With the accelerated and preemptive use of our models across nearly every aspect of society, we would like to open many more conversations along these lines. 

Accepted NeurIPS position papers will be included in the conference proceedings, including being presented in orals and poster sessions, so that all NeurIPS paper authors will have opportunities to engage with the ideas in these papers as part of the main conference.