AI pioneer Sepp Hochreiter receives Wilhelm Exner Medal 2025!

AI pioneer Sepp Hochreiter receives Wilhelm Exner Medal 2025!

Univ.-Prof. Sepp Hochreiter from the Johannes Kepler University Linz was awarded the prestigious Wilhelm Exner Medal. This honor makes him the 246th laureate and recognizes his outstanding contributions to the field of artificial intelligence (AI), including as co-founder of the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) architecture. The award ceremony took place on November 20, 2025 in Vienna, as part of the Exner Lectures, in which AT&S also took part as a co-partner and Hochreiter's lecture “Industrial Artificial Intelligence” was highlighted as the highlight of the event. This meeting took place in front of around 150 guests, as [leadersnet] reports.

The Wilhelm Exner Medal has been awarded by the Austrian Trade Association (ÖGV) since 1921. It recognizes developments that translate scientific findings into commercial use. At the award ceremony, Peter Lieber, President of the ÖGV, emphasized the important role of knowledge transfer for small and medium-sized companies, especially in times of technological change. Hochreiter appealed to entrepreneurs to think intensively about the possibilities of artificial intelligence and to view it as a valuable tool to meet current industrial requirements.

Technological revolutions in focus

In his lecture, Hochreiter outlined the three crucial phases of technological revolutions: from basic research to scaling to industrial application. The industry is currently in the industrial artificial intelligence phase, which focuses heavily on practical applications, such as predictive maintenance, energy forecasting and automated quality controls. According to Hochreiter, time series analyzes are crucial in these fields.

He was optimistic about Austria's future in the field of AI and referred to the country's existing skilled workers, industrial companies and innovation-friendly culture. These factors would position Austria well to profitably exploit the opportunities offered by AI. Philipp Bodzenta from Coca-Cola supported this view and emphasized the connection between economic development and scientific impulses.

Collaboration between science and industry

The Exner Lectures highlighted the important collaboration between science and industry to design sustainable solutions. The event placed a clear focus on the need to implement heuristic approaches in business practice. AT&S, a leading manufacturer of IC substrates, also highlighted that the increasing demands on data processing and energy efficiency make intelligent systems in production absolutely necessary. Hochreiter described receiving the Exner Medal as a significant milestone in his career and emphasized the medal's role in the transfer of knowledge between research and business.

Dialogue between stakeholders is seen as crucial for the further development and acceptance of AI technologies, especially for small and medium-sized companies. The innovative spirit of collaboration in these areas could open up new possibilities for the integration and application of artificial intelligence in the future.

For more information about Hochreiter's achievements, see the articles from [leadersnet], [ats] and [jku].