MBZUAI ·
Turing Award winner Raj Reddy spoke at the MBZUAI Executive Program. Reddy is a Professor of Computer Science and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and has held leadership roles at CMU, AAAI, and IEEE. His research focuses on AI, human-computer interaction, and technology's societal impact. Why it matters: High-profile speakers at UAE AI programs can help attract talent and investment to the region.
MBZUAI ·
MBZUAI Adjunct Professor Iryna Gurevych has won the 2025 Royal Society Milner Award for her contributions to NLP and AI. The Milner Award recognizes outstanding European computer scientists and includes a bronze medal and a £5,000 honorarium. Gurevych's work focuses on processing big data with NLP tools, argument mining, and detecting misleading content. Why it matters: The award highlights MBZUAI's growing prominence in the international AI research landscape and Gurevych's work in making language models safer.
MBZUAI ·
A professor from EPFL (Lausanne) gave a talk at MBZUAI on computing in the post-Moore era, highlighting the slowing of Moore's Law due to physical limits in transistor miniaturization. He discussed research challenges and opportunities for future computing technologies. He presented examples of post-Moore technologies he helped develop in the datacenter space. Why it matters: As Moore's Law slows, research into alternative computing paradigms becomes critical for the continued advancement of AI and digital services in the UAE and globally.
MBZUAI ·
MBZUAI and GenBio AI have won the UAE AI Award 2025 in the AI Scientific Research category for their "Unified Protein Language Modeling Framework". The winning project enables AI to learn protein function, generate sequences, and predict 3D structures. The AI-driven simulation approach aims to accelerate drug development, reduce costs, and improve success rates. Why it matters: This award highlights the UAE's commitment to fostering AI innovation in biomedicine and drug discovery, positioning the region as a leader in AI-driven healthcare advancements.
TII ·
Cryptography Research Center's Prof. Francisco Rodriguez-Henriquez and PhD candidate Jorge Chavez-Saab won a Best Paper Award ahead of Asiacrypt 2022. Their paper, "SwiftEC: Shallue-van de Woestijne Indifferentiable Function to Elliptic Curves," was written in collaboration with Mehdi Tibouchi of NTT. The paper presents an improved variation of the Elligator Squared technique for representing points of arbitrary elliptic curves as close-to-uniform random strings. Why it matters: The award recognizes important cryptographic research from the UAE, contributing to the advancement of secure digital solutions.
MBZUAI ·
MBZUAI Professor Kun Zhang received a Test of Time Award Honorable Mention at ICML 2022 for his 2012 paper “On causal and anticausal learning." The paper, co-authored with researchers from the Max-Planck Institute, is considered foundational for causal learning in machine learning. Zhang's work demonstrated the importance of causality for machine learning tasks, helping to shift views in the field. Why it matters: This award highlights the growing recognition of causal AI research and MBZUAI's role in advancing the field.
KAUST ·
KAUST has been awarded the ACM Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling, considered the "Nobel" of high-performance computing, for their work on exascale climate emulators. The winning paper, a collaborative effort with institutions including the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, addresses the computational and storage demands of high-resolution earth system models. The KAUST team included Sameh Abdulah, Marc G. Genton, David E. Keyes, and others. Why it matters: This is the first time an institution in the Middle East has won the prize, highlighting KAUST's leadership in high-performance computing and climate research in the region.
TII ·
Dr. Mohamed Ferrag, a Lead Researcher at AIDRC, received the "Algeria Scopus Award" from Algeria's Ministry of Education and Higher Research for his contributions to computer science. Dr. Ferrag is an IEEE Senior Member and has authored many scientific papers and books. He was also ranked among the World's Top 2% Scientists from Stanford University in 2020-2022. Why it matters: This award recognizes and encourages scientific research and talent within the Algerian AI and computer science community.