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.