Senior Researcher
Microsoft Research AI for Science

Google Scholar | Github

Contact: guoqingliu (at) microsoft.com
Building 2, No. 5 DanLing Street, Haidian District, Beijing, China.

• 2024-09: Our paper Accelerating Protein Engineering with Fitness Landscape Modeling and Reinforcement Learning is available at bioRxiv!
• 2024-07: Our paper Reinforcement Learning from Bagged Reward is accepted to ICML 2024 Workshop on Aligning Reinforcement Learning Experimentalists and Theorists!
• 2024-05: Our paper Token-level Direct Preference Optimization is accepted to ICML 2024!
• 2024-03: We released a new AI4Science Research Project page for a collection of research projects in the field of AI4Science. Check it out if interested!
• 2024-01: Our paper Connecting Large Language Models with Evolutionary Algorithms Yields Powerful Prompt Optimizers is accepted to ICLR 2024!
• 2023-10: Our paper Re-evaluating Retrosynthesis Algorithms with Syntheseus is accepted to NeurIPS 2023 Workshop on AI4Science!
• 2023-10: Our paper De novo Drug Design using Reinforcement Learning with Multiple GPT Agents is accepted to NeurIPS 2023!
• 2023-10: Our paper QuinNet: Efficiently Incorporating Quintuple Interactions into Geometric Deep Learning Force Fields is accepted to NeurIPS 2023!
• 2023-04: Our paper Retrosynthetic Planning with Dual Value Networks is accepted to ICML 2023!
• 2022-11: Our paper Re-evaluating Chemical Synthesis Planning Algorithms is accepted to NeurIPS 2022 Workshop on AI4Science!

Guoqing Liu is a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research AI for Science. His research interests include reinforcement learning, intersection of foundation models and decision making/reinforcement learning, and their applications in the scientific domain. In Project Suphx, he and his team built the world-best Mahjong AI, Suphx, which achieved 10 DAN on the Tenhou platform in mid 2019. In Project Mariana, he built the first general pixel-based automated game testing agent, Inspector, which was utilized by Xbox Studios Quality. Most recently, he has been focusing on developing Foundation models and RL agents in scientific discovery. Before joining MSR, he obtained his Ph.D. degree from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2021, under the joint Ph.D. program between USTC and Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA), advised by Dr. Tie-Yan Liu and Prof. Nenghai Yu.

("*": equal contribution; "†": correspondence)
1. Accelerating Protein Engineering with Fitness Landscape Modeling and Reinforcement Learning [Paper]
   Haoran Sun, Liang He, Pan Deng, Guoqing Liu, Haiguang Liu, Chuan Cao, Fusong Ju, Lijun Wu, Tao Qin, Tie-Yan Liu. bioRxiv 2024.
   
2. Reinforcement Learning from Bagged Reward [Paper]
   Yuting Tang, Xin-Qiang Cai, Yao-Xiang Ding, Qiyu Wu, Guoqing Liu, Masashi Sugiyama
   ICML 2024 Workshop on Aligning Reinforcement Learning Experimentalists and Theorists (ICML-W 2024)
3. Token-level Direct Preference Optimization [Paper]
   Yongcheng Zeng, Guoqing Liu, Weiyu Ma, Ning Yang, Haifeng Zhang, Jun Wang
   Forty-first International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2024)
4. Connecting Large Language Models with Evolutionary Algorithms Yields Powerful Prompt Optimizers [Paper]
   Qingyan Guo, Rui Wang, Junliang Guo, Bei Li, Kaitao Song, Xu Tan, Guoqing Liu, Jiang Bian, Yujiu Yang
   Twelfth International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR 2024)
5. Re-evaluating Retrosynthesis Algorithms with Syntheseus [Paper]
   Krzysztof Maziarz, Austin Tripp, Guoqing Liu, Megan Stanley, Shufang Xie, Piotr Gaiński, Philipp Seidl, Marwin Segler
   NeurIPS 2023 Workshop on AI for Science (NeurIPS-W 2023)
6. De novo Drug Design using Reinforcement Learning with Multiple GPT Agents [Paper]
   Xiuyuan Hu, Guoqing Liu†, Yang Zhao, Hao Zhang
   Thirty-seventh Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2023)
7. QuinNet: Efficiently Incorporating Quintuple Interactions into Geometric Deep Learning Force Fields [Paper]
   Zun Wang, Guoqing Liu, Yichi Zhou, Tong Wang, Bin Shao
   Thirty-seventh Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2023)
8. Retrosynthetic Planning with Dual Value Networks [Paper]
   Guoqing Liu*, Di Xue*, Shufang Xie, Yingce Xia, Austin Tripp, Krzysztof Maziarz, Marwin Segler, Tao Qin, Zongzhang Zhang, Tie-Yan Liu
   Fortieth International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2023)
9. Re-evaluating Chemical Synthesis Planning Algorithms [Paper]
   Austin Tripp, Krzysztof Maziarz, Sarah Lewis, Guoqing Liu, Marwin Segler
   NeurIPS 2022 Workshop on AI for Science (NeurIPS-W 2022)
10. You May Not Need Ratio Clipping in PPO [Paper]
    Mingfei Sun, Vitaly Kurin, Guoqing Liu, Sam Devlin, Tao Qin, Katja Hofmann, Shimon Whiteson. arXiv 2022.
    
11. Inspector: Pixel-based Automated Game Testing via Exploration, Detection, and Investigation [Paper]
    Guoqing Liu, Mengzhang Cai, Li Zhao, Tao Qin, Adrian Brown, Jimmy Bischoff and Tie-Yan Liu
    IEEE Conference on Games 2022 (COG 2022, Oral)
12. Independence-aware Advantage Estimation [Paper]
    Pushi Zhang, Li Zhao, Guoqing Liu, Jiang Bian, Minlie Huang, Tao Qin, Tie-Yan Liu
    30th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2021)
13. Return-based Contrastive Representation Learning for Reinforcement Learning [Paper]
    Guoqing Liu*, Chuheng Zhang*, Li Zhao, Tao Qin, Jinhua Zhu, Jian Li, Nenghai Yu, Tie-Yan Liu
    Ninth International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR 2021)
14. Demonstration Actor Critic [Paper]
    Guoqing Liu, Li Zhao, Pushi Zhang, Jiang Bian, Tao Qin, Nenghai Yu, Tie- Yan Liu
    Neurocomputing, Volume 434, 28 April 2021, Pages 194-202 (Neurocomputing 2021)
15. Suphx: Mastering Mahjong with Deep Reinforcement Learning [Paper][News]
    Junjie Li, Sotetsu Koyamada, Qiwei Ye, Guoqing Liu, Chao Wang, Ruihan Yang, Li Zhao, Tao Qin, Tie-Yan Liu, Hsiao-Wuen Hon. arXiv 2020.
    
16. Trust Region Evolution Strategies [Paper]
    Guoqing Liu, Li Zhao, Feidiao Yang, Jiang Bian, Tao Qin, Nenghai Yu, Tie-Yan Liu
    Thirty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2019)

• Sep.2016 - Jun.2021, School of Cyberspace Security, University of Science and Technology of China, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
• Sep.2012 - Jun.2016, School of Electronic Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.)

• PC member: ICLR, ICML, NeurIPS, AAAI, AAMAS
• Journal reviewer: TPAMI, Neurocomputing

• Aug.2016, Microsoft Research Asia, Stars of Tomorrow Internship Award
• Sep.2013, Sep.2014, Sep.2015, University of Science and Technology of China, Excellent Student Scholarship of USTC
• Dec.2013, Chinese Mathematical Society (CMS), First Price of National College Students Mathematical Competition (Anhui Province)
• Oct.2011, Chinese Mathematical Society (CMS), First Price of National High School Mathematics League (Jiangsu Province, 39 students)