Hi! My name is Haoran Sun (孙皓然). I am a second-year PhD student at the Center on Frontiers of Computing Studies, School of Computer Science, Peking University, advised by Prof. Xiaotie Deng. I received my B.E. in Artificial Intelligence (Tong Class) and B.A. in Economics (Double Major) from Yuanpei College, Peking University in 2024.
My broader research interests lie at the intersection of game theory and AI — see our survey [P1]. A line of my work has investigated how to leverage modern AI technology (neural networks) to discover high-revenue auction mechanisms (see [C2], [C7], and [C9]). More recently, I have been focusing on the training of foundation models, specifically post-training mechanisms and infrastructure (see [C8], [P6], and [P3]). Moreover, I am also interested in the product form of foundation models, i.e., how to monetize in the LLM era (see [P5] and [C6]).
You can find my publications on Google Scholar. Reach me at sunhaoran0301@stu.pku.edu.cn.
🔥 News
- 2026.05: 🎉 Our paper has been accepted to ICML 2026!
- 2026.04: 🎉🎉 Honored to co-organize the AIMS Workshop (AI for Mechanism Design and Strategic Decision Making) at ICLR 2026! Looking forward to seeing you in Rio de Janeiro!
📝 Selected Papers (* indicates equal contribution)
Enhancing Affine Maximizer Auctions with Correlation-Aware Payment
Haoran Sun, Xuanzhi Xia, Xu Chu, Xiaotie Deng
- Proposed correlation-aware affine maximizer auctions for correlated bidders.
Siwei Wang$^*$, Yifei Shen$^*$, Haoran Sun$^*$, Shi Feng$^*$, Shang-Hua Teng, Li Dong, Yaru Hao, Wei Chen
- Theoretical analysis of RL methods for LLM planning, revealing benefits and pitfalls.
Zhijian Duan$^*$, Haoran Sun$^*$, Yichong Xia, Siqiang Wang, Zhilin Zhang, Chuan Yu, Jian Xu, Xiaotie Deng
- Novel combinatorial auction design combining zeroth-order and first-order optimization.
Mechanism Design for LLM Fine-tuning with Multiple Reward Models
Haoran Sun, Yurong Chen, Siwei Wang, Wei Chen, Xiaotie Deng
- Mechanism design framework for LLM fine-tuning with multiple reward models.
Game Theory Meets Large Language Models: A Systematic Survey
Haoran Sun, Yusen Wu, Yukun Cheng, Xu Chu
- Comprehensive survey on the intersection of game theory and LLMs.
A Scalable Neural Network for DSIC Affine Maximizer Auction Design
Zhijian Duan, Haoran Sun, Yurong Chen, Xiaotie Deng
- Neural network approach for designing affine maximizer auctions.
🎖 Honors and Awards
- 2024.12 🥉 3rd Place in NeurIPS 2024 Auto-Bidding in Large-Scale Auctions Competition (General Track)
- 2024.06 🏆 Song Qingling Scholarship, Peking University
- 2023.10 🏆 Yang Fuqing & Wang Yangyuan Academician Scholarship (Top 10%), Peking University
- 2023.10 🏆 Outstanding Research Award, Peking University
- 2023.08 🥇 6th Place in IJCAI Mahjong AI Competition (IJCAI 2023); 8th Place (IJCAI 2024)
💬 Academic Service
- Workshop Organizer: ICLR 2026 Workshop on AI for Mechanism Design and Strategic Decision Making (AIMS)
- Peer Review: ICLR 2026, NeurIPS (2024-2026), ICML (2024-2026), WWW 2024, COLM 2026, IEEE TCE
📖 Educations
2024.09 - 2029.07 (Expected), PhD in Computer Science, Center on Frontiers of Computing Studies, School of Computer Science, Peking University. Advisor: Prof. Xiaotie Deng.
2020.09 - 2024.07, B.E. in Artificial Intelligence and B.A. in Economics (Double Major), Tong Class, Yuanpei College, Peking University.
💻 Internships
- 2025.09 - Now, Research Intern, JD Technology, Beijing, China. Mentored by Junwu Xiong (AI Infra Team).
- 2025.02 - 2025.09, Research Intern, Alimama, Alibaba Group, Beijing, China. Mentored by Zhilin Zhang (Advertising Group).
- 2023.06 - 2024.03, Research Intern, Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing, China. Mentored by Wei Chen (Theory Group).