Dmitry Kovalev Awarded the Boris Polyak Prize for Achievements in Numerical Optimization

Dmitry Kovalev, lab researcher and senior scientist at the Institute for System Programming of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISP RAS) and Yandex Research, has been awarded the Boris Polyak Prize for his contributions to numerical optimization methods. The award ceremony took place at Innopolis University during the XVI annual youth school "Control, Information, and Optimization," an event dedicated to students, graduate students, and early-career researchers.

Kovalev was recognized for two breakthrough papers presented in 2024. The first focuses on solving bilinear saddle-point problems with composite structure and has been accepted for presentation at ICML 2025. The second introduces a theoretical foundation for the MUON method (Orthogonalized Momentum), a promising alternative to the widely used Adam (Adaptive Moment Estimation) algorithm in training large language models.

The Boris Polyak Prize, amounting to 100,000 RUB, is awarded to researchers under the age of 35 for significant results in the field of optimization achieved within the past three years. This year’s expert jury included Lab Head Alexander Gasnikov, researcher Yuriy Dorn, Pavel Shcherbakov (Trapeznikov Institute of Control Sciences, RAS), Yuriy Nesterov (Catholic University of Leuven), Oleg Granichin (St. Petersburg State University), and Kirill Nikolaev (T-Bank).

“We expect the Boris Polyak Prize to become an annual recognition awarded to a young researcher under 35 who has made a breakthrough over the past year in numerical optimization, control theory, or data analysis,” said Gasnikov. “These are the core areas of the school and the legacy of Boris Teodorovich Polyak. The expert board includes Pavel Shcherbakov and Yuri Nesterov as permanent members. This year, we were also joined by Oleg Granichin, Yuri Dorn, and Kirill Nikolaev.”

The youth summer school "Control, Information, and Optimization," named after Boris Polyak, has been held annually since 2009. This year’s edition brought together 58 senior students, master’s students, and PhD candidates from 12 regions of Russia. The program included 18 lectures by researchers from RAS, MIPT, AIRI, HSE University, Innopolis University, Skoltech, MSU, and others — along with a poster session, roundtable discussions, and an interactive talk “Truth and Myths about B. T. Polyak.”