Theory · optimization papers, 2023–2026

Key findings

• Theory · optimization went from 123 papers in 2023 to 584 in 2026, roughly 4.7x in three years.
• NeurIPS publishes the most Theory · optimization work: 778 papers from 2023 to 2026, 42% of the four-venue total.
• The fastest-growing overlap is with Low-Rank Adaptation: papers tagged with both rose from 0 in 2023 to 31 in 2026.
• Among the 5 topics under Theory and Statistics, it ranks #1 by 2026 paper count; the fastest grower in the group, Theory · learning theory, is up 5.6x versus 4.7x here.

Representative papers

Spread across years and venues so every edition shows up

• NeurIPS 2026A Mechanistic Investigation of Theory of Mind in a Large Language Model
• ICML 2026A Direct Second-Order Method for Solving Two-Player Zero-Sum Games
• ICLR 2026A Convergence Analysis of Adaptive Optimizers under Floating-point Quantization
• CVPR 2026TriSim Tri-Dimensional Similarity Modeling with Extreme Value Theory for False-Negative
• NeurIPS 20253BASiL: An Algorithmic Framework for Sparse plus Low-Rank Compression of LLMs
• ICML 2025Active Learning of Deep Neural Networks via Gradient-Free Cutting Planes
• ICLR 2025A Coefficient Makes SVRG Effective
• CVPR 2025Dynamic Stereotype Theory Induced Micro-expression Recognition with Oriented Deformation
• NeurIPS 2024A Combinatorial Algorithm for the Semi-Discrete Optimal Transport Problem
• ICML 2024A Statistical Theory of Regularization-Based Continual Learning
• ICLR 2024A Discretization Framework for Robust Contextual Stochastic Optimization
• NeurIPS 2023[Re] Bandit Theory and Thompson Sampling-guided Directed Evolution for Sequence Optimization
• ICML 2023Averaged Method of Multipliers for Bi-Level Optimization without Lower-Level Strong Convexity
• ICLR 2023Adaptive Optimization in the $\infty$-Width Limit
• CVPR 2023Deep Hashing With Minimal-Distance-Separated Hash Centers
• NeurIPS 2026Avoiding Obfuscation with Prover-Estimator Debate
• ICML 2026A General Framework for Dynamic Consistent Submodular Maximization
• ICLR 2026A Memory-Efficient Hierarchical Algorithm for Large-scale Optimal Transport Problems
• CVPR 2026FedAdamom Adaptive Momentum for Improved Generalization in Federated Optimization
• NeurIPS 2025A Beyond-Worst-Case Analysis of Greedy k-means++

All Theory · optimization papers

67 papers, page 2 of 2

51. ICML 2024Proactive DP: A Multiple Target Optimization Framework for DP-SGD
52. ICML 2024Quantum Algorithm for Online Exp-concave Optimization
53. ICML 2024Random matrix theory improved Fréchet mean of symmetric positive definite matrices
54. ICML 2024Relational Learning in Pre-Trained Models: A Theory from Hypergraph Recovery Perspective
55. ICML 2024Risk Aware Benchmarking of Large Language Models
56. ICML 2024Robust Data-driven Prescriptiveness Optimization
57. ICML 2024Self-Consistency Training for Density-Functional-Theory Hamiltonian Prediction
58. ICML 2024Sharp Rates in Dependent Learning Theory: Avoiding Sample Size Deflation for the Square Loss
59. ICML 2024Skill Set Optimization: Reinforcing Language Model Behavior via Transferable Skills
60. ICML 2024Stochastic Weakly Convex Optimization beyond Lipschitz Continuity
61. ICML 2024The Max-Min Formulation of Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning: From Theory to a Model-Free Algorithm
62. ICML 2024Towards the Theory of Unsupervised Federated Learning: Non-asymptotic Analysis of Federated EM Algorithms
63. ICML 2024Transformers Get Stable: An End-to-End Signal Propagation Theory for Language Models
64. ICML 2024Tuning-Free Stochastic Optimization
65. ICML 2024Two-timescale Derivative Free Optimization for Performative Prediction with Markovian Data
66. ICML 2024Universal Gradient Methods for Stochastic Convex Optimization
67. ICML 2024Vanilla Bayesian Optimization Performs Great in High Dimensions

FAQ

How many Theory · optimization papers were published at NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML and CVPR from 2023 to 2026?

1,871 in total: 123 in 2023, 494 in 2024, 670 in 2025, 584 in 2026.

How many Theory · optimization papers are at NeurIPS 2026?

NeurIPS 2026 has 119 Theory · optimization papers, versus 318 the year before.

How many Theory · optimization papers are at ICLR 2026?

ICLR 2026 has 244 Theory · optimization papers, versus 196 the year before.

How many Theory · optimization papers are at ICML 2026?

ICML 2026 has 214 Theory · optimization papers, versus 147 the year before.

How many Theory · optimization papers are at CVPR 2026?

CVPR 2026 has 7 Theory · optimization papers, versus 9 the year before.

Which conference publishes the most Theory · optimization papers?

NeurIPS, with 778 papers from 2023 to 2026.