Nowadays, there aren\u2019t any universities competing in [the AI model] game, other than us, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is a lot riding on the institute, which is central<\/a> to the nation\u2019s vision of becoming a global AI powerhouse. The government has bet billions on the tech, and hopes a steady talent pipeline will help diversify<\/a> its oil-based economy. AI is expected to contribute 20%<\/a> of the UAE\u2019s non-oil GDP by 2031, according to a report<\/a> by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n MBZUAI should \u201ccreate an AI district that would become the bedrock of the next level of advancement of the UAE\u2019s and MENA\u2019s [Middle East and North Africa] economy and global impact,\u201d Eric Xing, the university\u2019s president, said<\/a> at an event in January.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t \t\tMBZUAI is central to the UAE\u2019s strategy to attract talent. The university says its ambition to be the \u201cStanford of the Middle East\u201d is already beginning to pay off. It is currently among the top 20<\/a> universities publishing on AI topics, according to CSRanking, a global computer-science ranking initiative.<\/p>\n Last month, it unveiled K2 Think, an open-source AI reasoning model, in collaboration with G42. Independent researchers<\/a> who tested the model say it is \u201ccompetent,\u201d though not on par with OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT or DeepSeek.\u00a0<\/p>\n Few universities are building foundation models, MBZUAI\u2019s provost Tim Baldwin told Rest of World. Foundation models are general-purpose models trained on vast data. The research has recently become dominated by industry, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis disconnect between academic research, and industry research in AI is a very real thing,\u201d he said. \u201cNowadays, there aren\u2019t any universities competing in [the AI model] game, other than us, really.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The university has collaborated with G42 to release an Arabic large language model called Jais<\/a>, a Kazakh LLM<\/a>, and a Hindi LLM<\/a>. Given the diversity of its students and faculty, non-English LLMs are developed in collaboration with students from the relevant cultures, Baldwin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt isn\u2019t, [for example],\u00a0a Hindi-speaking Western culture model, which is a lot of what happens nowadays,\u201d he said, referring to models like ChatGPT, which are trained<\/a> primarily on English-language content and said to reflect Western cultural norms.\u00a0<\/p>\n The university is located in the tech hub of Masdar City, on the outskirts of the capital. Its campus blends futuristic design with royal opulence: silver-colored classrooms, labs covered in solar panelled-facades, and terracotta dorms with intricately latticed balconies. Driverless pods transport visitors around the campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n In early September, two weeks into the new academic year, the halls were quiet. For the first time, the university has enrolled 114 undergraduates in a fully funded three-year engineering and business degree.\u00a0<\/p>\n From day one, the students will ideate startups, guided by professors who\u2019ve themselves set up startups and sold them, Hao Li, head of the undergraduate program and a professor of computer vision, told Rest of World.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to build an entire [AI] ecosystem,\u201d Li said. \u201cIn other universities, AI is a specialization. We\u2019re turning it upside down: AI is basically the foundation of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t \t\tDriverless pods at MBZUAI transport visitors around campus.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t \t\tThe university aims to build an ecosystem around startups. Since 2024, the alumni have founded 10 startups, Baldwin said. The university recruits the most ambitious students who \u201cwant to make the world a better place,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Graduate student Alexander Pretko enrolled at the university for a Ph.D. after visiting as an exchange student.<\/p>\n \u201cI was able to see the tremendous resources they had available, as well as the quality of faculty they were hiring,\u201d said Pretko, a former Wall Street banker and University of Colorado Boulder alum. It\u2019s difficult to get similar backing in the U.S. where \u201cfunding is tenuous and opportunities are scarce,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t \t\tTim Baldwin, provost, said students contribute to non-English LLM development. The university\u2019s success is critical to the UAE\u2019s AI mission, whose execution has two pillars: securing semiconductor chips to set up the \u201ccompute\u201d or processing power needed for the top AI models, and hiring talent.<\/p>\n \u201cTalent drives the next wave of AI, and it only matters when paired with compute,\u201d Mohammed Soliman, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, told Rest of World.<\/p>\n State-backed G42 has reportedly secured<\/a> thousands of the most advanced Nvidia chips. The UAE now ranks second to the U.S. in AI compute power, possessing over 188,000 AI chips and 6.4 gigawatts of power, according to a TRG Datacenters study<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the future, the UAE can use American tech, powered by Emirati energy and infrastructure, to export<\/a> compute power to Asia and Africa, Soliman said.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/NN_MBZUAI_014-crop-scaled.jpg\")
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\n\t\tNatalie Naccache for Rest of World<\/p>\n
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