The dynamics of gauge fields is notoriously complicated and difficult to understand.
That is especially true for Quantum Chromodynamics, the theory of strong
interactions. It has been anticipated for long time that string theory may give an
effective description of strongly interacting gauge fields. A concrete realization
of this idea is the gauge/string duality, or the AdS/CFT correspondence. More
recently, it was shown that quantum spin chains also naturally arise in gauge
theories.
I will review the interplay of spin chains and strings in gauge theories and their
role in the gauge/string duality.