The Erdős sumset conjecture predicts that any set of natural numbers with positive density must contain the arithmetic sum A+B of two infinite sets A and B. I will present a recent solution to this conjecture, obtained jointly with F. Richter and D. Robertson. The proof involves a modified version of the correspondence principle devised by Furstenberg in 1977 to convert certain problems from combinatorics into the realm of ergodic theory, and two variations of the decomposition of an arbitrary function on a measure preserving system into an almost periodic and a weak mixing components.