Table of Contents
Detailed Curriculum
MASTER 1 (M1)
- MAP538: Refresher in Statistics (Marine Le Morvan)
- INF538: Refresher in Computer Science (Marie-Paule Cani), presenting an introduction to 3D Computer Graphics
All subsequent M1 courses are 36h and will credit 4.5 ECTS.
Period 1
Mandatory:
- Computer Animation (INF585, Mathieu Desbrun and Marie-Paule Cani, EP)
1 course among:
- Machine and Deep Learning (INF554, Michalis Vazirgiannis, EP)
- Foundations of Machine Learning (MAP553, Erwan Le Pennec, EP)
2 courses among:
- Topological Data Analysis (INF556, Steve Oudot, EP & Inria)
- Image Analysis and Computer Vision (INF573, Mathieu Brédif, EP & IGN)
- Digital Representation and Analysis of Shapes (INF574, Mathieu Desbrun, Pooran Memari, EP & Inria)
- Signal Processing (MAP555, Rémi Flamary, EP)
+ Mandatory non-scientific courses
- Fundamental of Strategy and Innovation (MIE555) or Introduction to Marketing and Strategy (MIE556, Workload ++)
- Sport
- Humanities
- Foreign Languages
Period 2
2 Mandatory courses:
- Advanced Machine Learning and Autonomous Agents (INF581, Jesse Read, EP)
- Computer Vision: From Fundamentals to Applications (INF5CV, Vicky Kalogeiton, EP)
2 scientific courses among
- Advanced Deep Learning (INF581A, Michalis Vazirgiannis, Vicky Kalogeiton, Johannes Lutzeyer, EP)
- Image Synthesis: Theory and Practice (INF584, Tamy Boubekeur, Telecom ParisTech)
- Real-time AI in Video Games : Decisive & Collaborative Actions (INF584A, David Bilemdjian, Chaire Ubisoft)
- Statistics in Action (MAP566, Zacharie Naulet, EP & INRAE)
- Computational Optimal Transport for ML and Generative Modeling (MAP588, Rémi Flamary, EP)
+ Mandatory non-scientific courses
- Startup and Large Companies: Building a Bridge for Innovation (MIE566, 3 ECTS)
- Sport
- Humanities
- Foreign Languages
Period 3
MAP/INF590 - Research-Oriented Internship (4 to 6 months, 20 ECTS)
MASTER 2 (M2)
No refresher course is provided but students directly entering in the M2 and lacking background in Computer Graphics are welcome to follow the M1 refresher course in Computer Science.
Period 1
APM_53440_EP - Advanced unsupervised learning (24h, 2 ECTS), Pierre Latouche(UCA) (contact: pierre.latouche@uca.fr)
ABSTRACT TO BE ADDED
APM_53441_EP - Learning with tabular data (24h, 2 ECTS), Marine Le Morvan (contact: marine.le-morvan@polytechnique.edu)
ABSTRACT TO BE ADDED
CSC_53432_EP - Large Language Models (24h, 2 ECTS), Guokan Shang (MBZUAI) (contact: guokan.shang@mbzuai.ac.ae)
This course offers a deep dive into Large Language Models (LLMs), blending essential theory with hands-on labs to develop both practical skills and conceptual understanding—preparing you for roles in LLM development and deployment.
The curriculum begins with a brief overview of key historical NLP techniques. It then transitions to the transformer architecture, focusing on its attention mechanism and tokenization—the core of modern LLMs. Pre-training objectives such as masked/denoising language modeling and causal language modeling will also be covered, forming the basis for models like BERT, GPT, and T5. The course then examines LLM post-training techniques used to refine pre-trained models, including instruction tuning (SFT), reinforcement learning from human feedback (e.g., PPO/DPO), and reinforcement learning from verifiable rewards (e.g., GRPO). Finally, the course will address LLM application and future directions—including RAG, agents, multimodality, and alternative model architectures.
CSC_53439_EP - Deep Reinforcement Learning (24h, 2 ECTS), Jesse Read (contact: jesse.read@polytechnique.edu)
Reinforcement learning (RL) is of increasing relevance today, including in games, complex energy systems, recommendation engines, finance, logistics, and for auto-tuning the parameters of other learning frameworks. This course assumes familiarity with the foundations of RL and its main paradigms (temporal-difference learning, Monte Carlo, and policy-gradient methods). We will explore them further, and study modern state-of-the-art variants (such as proximal policy optimization), with a focus on developing RL solutions with deep neural architectures suited to modern applications. We will also take a look at specialized topics such inverse reinforcement learning.
CSC_53431_EP - Analysis and Deep Learning on Geometric Data (24h, 2 ECTS), Maks Ovsjanikov (EP) (contact: maks@lix.polytechnique.fr)
This course will introduce students to advanced topics in modern geometric data analysis with focus on a) mathematical foundations (discrete differential geometry, mapping, optimization), and b) deep learning for best performing methods. We will give an overview of the foundations in shape analysis and processing before moving to modern techniques based on deep learning for solving problems such as shape classification, correspondence, parametrization, etc.
CSC_53433_EP - Creative and Generative models in Computer Graphics (24h, 2 ECTS), Marie-Paule Cani (EP), Julien Pettré (Inria) (contact: marie-paule.cani@polytechnique.edu)
This course presents the AI-related methods developed in Computer Graphics to create or generate individual 3D shapes, animated landscapes and humanoid motion. We first introduce user-centered Creative AI, i.e. smart 3D models - either based on knowledge or trained from examples, designed to help users creating and controlling 3D shapes and environments. Second, we focus on the use of AI in Character Animation, from early motion planning and control methods to deep reinforcement learning solutions. These methods result into 3D character models able to navigate alone or within crowds, and to interact with their environment. The lab sessions are held on Unity, based on C#.
Period 2
CSC_54456_EP - Navigation for Autonomous systems (24h, 2 ECTS), David Filliat (ENSTA) (contact: david.filliat@ensta-paris.fr)
Drones and robots must create maps of their surroundings to plan their movement and navigate. This course presents the robotic platforms and the most common sensors (vision, Lidar, intertial units, odometry …) and the different components of navigation: control; obstacle avoidance; localization; mapping (SLAM) and trajectory planning as well as filtering (Kalman filter, particle filtering, etc.) and optimization techniques used in these fields.
CSC_54441_EP - Introduction to the verification of neural networks (24h, 2 ECTS), Eric Goubault (EP), Sylvie Putot (EP) (contact: sylvie.putot@polytechnique.edu)
Neural networks are widely used in numerous applications including safety-critical ones such as control and planning for autonomous systems. A central question is how to verify that they are correct with respect to some specification. Beyond correctness or robustness, we are also interested in questions such as explainability and fairness, that can in turn be specified as formal verification problems. In this course, we will see how formal methods approaches introduced in the context of program verification can be leveraged to address the verification of neural networks.
CSC_54442_EP - Socio-emotional embodied conversational agents (24h, 2 ECTS), Chloé Clavel (Inria Paris) and Brian Ravenet (Université Paris Saclay) (contacts: chloe.clavel@inria.fr and brian.ravenet@lisn.upsaclay.fr>)
Many interactive systems, from virtual companions to online retailing, rely on embodied conversational agents. These agents need to reach a good level of communication skills to conduct a conversation with humans and be acceptable and trustworthy by humans. This course will introduce non-verbal behavior models, present models for multimodal dialog, opinion detection and voice quality, explain how to model the agent's emotions and their evolution over time, and present methods for enhancing naturalism with expressive gaze and gestures, realistic animation.
CSC_54444_EP - Virtual/Augmented Reality & 3D Interactions (24h, 2 ECTS), Anatole Lécuyer (Inria Rennes), Ferran Argelaguet (Inria Rennes), Arnaud Prouzeau (Inria Saclay), Claudio Pacchierotti (CNRS - IRISA), Fabien Lotte (Inria Bordeaux) (contact: anatole.lecuyer@inria.fr)
Metaverse and virtual/augmented reality technologies are spreading widely. But reconstructing our world and generating virtual ones would be useless without effective techniques to navigate and interact with them. This course will present virtual and augmented reality systems as well as the associated methods for 3D interaction, from multi-modal interaction merging visual immersion, sound and haptics systems to brain-computer interfaces.
CSC_54434_EP - 3D Computer Vision (24h, 2 ECTS), Xi Wang (EP) (contact: Xi.Wang@polytechnique.edu)
This course presents modern 3D computer vision in a clear, step-by-step progression: we begin with classical multi-view reconstruction and structure‑from‑motion pipelines, then advance to neural implicit representations for novel‑view synthesis (e.g., NeRF), proceed to explicit geometry rendering via 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS), and finally explore generative 3D models: e.g., 3D generation guided by 2D generative score distillation (DreamFusion-like), data‑driven 3D/4D content generation for dynamic scenes and motion, and the latest video generation techniques.
CSC_54443_EP - Soft robots: Design, Modeling, Simulation and Control (24h, 2 ECTS), Christian Duriez (Inria Lille) (contact: christian.duriez@inria.fr)
Soft robotics is a promising novel field, bringing more robustness in robots design and for all tasks involving close interactions with humans, from help to disable people to medical robot. This course will give an introduction to recent advances in soft robotics, including design, modeling, simulation and control techniques for robots, and will present recent applications in medicine, industry and art.
Transverse Courses and Projects (spanning Period 1 and 2)
MDC_54430_EP - Transverse project (8 ECTS): Students will work half a day a week on a transverse project, corresponding to a challenging question either raised by an industrial partner or by a researcher in the domain spanned by the programme.
IME_50430_EP - Seminar on ethical issues, law and novel applications of AI (6 ECTS), Véronique Steyer veronique.steyer@polytechnique.edu Students will be sensitized to ethical issues and law, and introduced to novel applications of artificial intelligence and visual computing through a weekly seminar with key-note talks from both institutional and industrial partners.
Courses in humanities, languages and sports (8 ECTS total) These courses will be similar to those of the other graduate degrees at Ecole Polytechnique.
Period 3
MAP/INF690 - Internship either in the R&D department of a company or in a research lab (5 to 6 months, 24 ECTS).