In this talk I will show how lattice techniques are able to carry out the non-perturbative running of the strong coupling in a controlled way. These techniques have applications not only in QCD, where the determination of the value of alpha_s plays is essential, but also in other strongly coupled theories. I will also cover some of the recent developments of the field, that promise a very precise determination of one of the fundamental parameters of the standard model with full control over the systematic uncertainties.
