The Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in Abu Dhabi has launched Manarat, a custom-developed control electronics platform for quantum computing. Manarat can control 10 qubits with high accuracy and synchronizes multiple electronic boards with accuracy exceeding 100 picoseconds. TII claims Manarat is five times more cost-efficient than commercial alternatives. Why it matters: This development marks a step toward large-scale quantum computing in the UAE and establishes sovereign capabilities in quantum technologies.
Mani Sarathy, an associate professor of chemical engineering, has been appointed Associate Director of the Clean Combustion Research Center (CCRC) at KAUST. Sarathy is part of the University’s Physical Science and Engineering Division. The announcement did not detail specific research directions. Why it matters: This signals KAUST's continued investment in and focus on clean combustion research.
MASARAT SA has developed Mubeen, a proprietary Arabic language model specializing in Arabic linguistics, Islamic studies, and cultural heritage. Mubeen was trained using native Arabic sources, including digitized historical manuscripts processed via a proprietary Arabic OCR engine. The model employs a Practical Closure Architecture to improve user intent understanding and provide decisive guidance. Why it matters: Mubeen addresses the utility gap in current Arabic LLMs by focusing on native Arabic data and cultural authenticity, which is critical for heritage preservation and alignment with Saudi Vision 2030.
KAUST highlights postdoctoral fellows Yi Jin Liew, Isabelle Schulz, Maren Ziegler and Neus Garcias Bonet outside the University Library. The article mentions King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (1924 – 2015). It encourages applications to KAUST's Discovery Postdoctoral program. Why it matters: This brief announcement signals KAUST's ongoing investment in attracting international research talent to Saudi Arabia.
MBZUAI and the Manara Center for Coexistence and Dialogue hosted a panel discussion at the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi on the role of faith in the age of AI. The panel featured scholars, religious leaders, and AI experts including MBZUAI President Eric Xing. Panelists discussed the differences between human consciousness/spirituality and AI capabilities, emphasizing the human capacity for higher consciousness, empathy, and collective understanding. Why it matters: The event highlights the UAE's focus on ethical AI development that considers the intersection of technology, spirituality, and human values.
Dr. Munawar Hayat from Monash University gave a talk on the history of AI, recent breakthroughs in deep learning, and future research directions. The talk covered computer vision, NLP, autonomous driving, and reinforcement learning. Dr. Hayat also discussed the limitations of AI and challenges in the field. Why it matters: This lecture helps contextualize the rapid progress of AI for students in the region.
Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) has released Fanar 2.0, the second generation of Qatar's Arabic-centric Generative AI platform, built entirely at QCRI. The core of Fanar 2.0 is Fanar-27B, which was continually pre-trained from a Gemma-3-27B backbone using 120 billion high-quality tokens and only 256 NVIDIA H100 GPUs. Fanar 2.0 includes capabilities like FanarGuard, Aura, Oryx, Fanar-Sadiq, Fanar-Diwan, and FanarShaheen for moderation, speech recognition, vision understanding, Islamic content, poetry generation, and translation. Why it matters: This shows that sovereign, resource-constrained AI development in the Arabic language is possible, producing competitive systems in the region.