Research areas

The scientists of the Department of Computer Science combine their diverse research activities in three main research areas. They include both basic research and application-oriented projects and are complemented by further relevant research topics in the individual research groups.

Complex Networked Systems

Closing the gap between humans, physical and digital world offers unprecedented opportunities across society. However, we still lack the basic understanding of the ensuing complex networked systems.

Our research mission is to analyse systems, design and build novel paradigms and mechanisms to increase the performance and resilience. To foster adoption in our future society, we follow an interdisciplinary approach from the beginning.

The scientists at TU Darmstadt find anoptimal environment for interdisciplinary research through the LOEWE-Center EmergenCITY for resilient infrastructures of digital cities and the National High Performance Computing Center for Computational Engineering Science NHR4CES, among others.

Cybersecurity & Privacy

Cybersecurity and privacy are key technologies for the rapidly advancing digitisation of government, economy and society. With future-oriented fields, such as the Internet of Things, quantum technology or artificial intelligence, increasingly complex areas of application for cybersecurity technologies emerge. At the same time, the number and complexity of cyberattacks are rising. Within the high-profile research topic Cybersecurity and Privacy, a holistic approach ranging from theoretical fundamentals to applied research is pursued to sustainably address the challenges of digitisation.

The scientists bundle their research at TU Darmstadt in the Collaborative Research Center CROSSING, the Graduate School Privacy and Trust for Mobile Users, and together with other partners in the National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity ATHENE. Various ERC grants provide excellent conditions for cutting-edge research.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) deals with automating intelligent behaviour. After 70 years, the field of AI has finally experienced a major breakthrough due to fundamental progress in many of its branches, particularly in machine learning, computer vision and natural language processing.

The department's research focus on artificial intelligence combines AI basic research with applications in technology. AI research at TU Darmstadt is considered excellent and is highly recognised internationally.

The research focus on artificial intelligence is supported by new research institutions (such as hessian.AI centre and the ELLIS Unit Darmstadt), group projects (such as WhiteBox), early-career research groups (such as the Emmy Noether research group iROSA and the BMBF-fundedResearch group IKIDA) in addition to numerous grants of the European Research Council.

Based on these research areas the department offers students specialised Master's programmes .