PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Lorenz Richter

Lorenz Richter is a mathematician who connects stochastic control, high-dimensional PDEs and diffusion processes to machine learning. He co-founded the machine learning company dida in 2018, and his 2021 paper with Leon Sallandt and Nikolas Nüsken on parabolic PDEs in the tensor train format won an Outstanding Paper Honorable Mention at ICML 2021. A doctoral thesis at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg is listed for 2022, and papers with Julius Berner and Karen Ullrich tied diffusion-based generative modeling to optimal control in 2022 and proposed improved samplers built on learned diffusions in 2023. He spoke at ICIAM 2023 in Tokyo and presented diffusion-model research at ICLR 2025 in Singapore. He is a researcher at the Zuse Institute Berlin and works at dida, the company he co-founded.

Now at
dida and Zuse Institute Berlin
Badges

Timeline

  1. 2018

    Co-founding dida

    He co-founds the machine learning company dida in 2018 and becomes its CTO. At dida he leads the machine learning team.

  2. 2020–2021

    Neural networks for HJB equations

    In 2020, he and Nikolas Nüsken post "Solving high-dimensional Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman PDEs using neural networks", which develops a framework based on divergences between path measures. The paper appears in Partial Differential Equations and Applications in 2021.

  3. 2021

    An ICML honorable mention

    He coauthors "Solving high-dimensional parabolic PDEs using the tensor train format" with Leon Sallandt and Nikolas Nüsken, which pairs backward stochastic differential equations with regression in the tensor format. The paper receives an Outstanding Paper Honorable Mention at ICML 2021.

  4. 2022

    Doctoral thesis at Cottbus

    His early focus at Freie Universität Berlin is stochastics and numerics. His doctoral thesis, "Solving high-dimensional PDEs, approximation of path space measures and importance sampling of diffusions", is listed among the 2022 doctorates of BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, in the Fachgebiet Stochastik und ihre Anwendungen (stochastics and its applications).

  5. 2022–2023

    Diffusions meet optimal control

    In 2022, he, Julius Berner and Karen Ullrich post "An optimal control perspective on diffusion-based generative modeling", which shows that the evidence lower bound is a direct consequence of the verification theorem from control theory and introduces a time-reversed diffusion sampler. In 2023, he and Berner post "Improved sampling via learned diffusions", which proposes the log-variance loss for diffusion-based samplers.

  6. 2023

    An ICIAM talk in Tokyo

    As co-founder and CTO of dida, he accepts an invitation to speak at ICIAM 2023 in Tokyo. His talk connects generative modeling based on stochastic differential equations with stochastic optimal control, partial differential equations and path space measures.

  7. 2025

    Diffusion models at ICLR

    At ICLR 2025 in Singapore, he presents dida's joint research about diffusion models as Managing Director and CTO of dida. The work includes the papers "Underdamped Diffusion Bridges with Applications to Sampling" and "Sequential Controlled Langevin Diffusions".

  8. As of October 2026

    Researcher at Zuse Institute Berlin

    He is a researcher at the Zuse Institute Berlin, where he has been since 2022, and works at dida, the company he co-founded. In 2026, he gives the talk "The duality between sampling and optimization: New perspectives from diffusions and optimal control" at DO x ML 2026 in Tokyo and ICOML 2026 in Taipei.

Career

  1. Since 2022Zuse Institute BerlinResearcher
  2. Since 2018didaCo-founder, CTO

Education

  1. 2022Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-SenftenbergPhD

From the biography.

  1. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes Lorenz Richter. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.
  2. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  3. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIWe estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  4. 43% of living people shaping AI work outside their country of birthWe estimate that 43% of living people shaping AI work outside their country of birth (520 of 1,198 people with known birth and employment countries).

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Lorenz Richter yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. About us dida.do. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Lorenz Richter - Founder & Managing Director at dida Machine Learning | The Org theorg.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Solving high-dimensional Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman PDEs using neural networks: perspectives from the theory of controlled diffusions and measures on path space arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Solving high-dimensional Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman PDEs using neural networks: perspectives from the theory of controlled diffusions and measures on path space (IDEAS/RePEc) ideas.repec.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Solving high-dimensional parabolic PDEs using the tensor train format arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. ICML 2021 Awards icml.cc. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Promotionen - BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg b-tu.de. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. An optimal control perspective on diffusion-based generative modeling arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Improved sampling via learned diffusions arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. Lorenz Richter, CTO of dida, shares his expertise at ICIAM 2023 in Tokyo dida.do. Checked 21 October 2026.
  11. Recap of the ICLR 2025 in Singapore dida.do. Checked 21 October 2026.
  12. Lorenz Richter - Google Scholar scholar.google.de. Checked 21 October 2026.
  13. The Asia tour of our Founder continues dida.do. Checked 21 October 2026.