Artificial Intelligence is already transforming research, education, and the way we work. To help KAUST make the most of these opportunities while ensuring responsible and effective adoption, the University has established the KAUST Institutional AI Adoption Strategy Working Group.
The working group brings together expertise from across the University to develop a practical institutional approach to AI adoption that supports world-class research, innovation, and education. The approach enables institutional productivity and effectiveness, while providing appropriate guidance on cybersecurity, data protection, intellectual property, compliance, and responsible use.
The working group has been tasked not only with identifying opportunities and risks, but also with developing recommendations for how KAUST should organize, govern, support, and enable AI adoption across the institution. This includes making practical recommendations on the operating model, governance arrangements, institutional capabilities, technologies, platforms, architectural approaches, and decision-making processes required to enable AI adoption at scale and support long-term success.
Working group membership
The working group brings together leading faculty and professional experts from across KAUST. They are:
- Professor Bernard Ghanem, Chair, Center of Excellence for Generative AI; working group Co-Chair
- Jonathan Churchill, Vice President and Chief Digital Officer; working group Co-Chair
- Professor Arwa Al-Aama, Interim Senior Vice President, Education and Advancement
- Professor Mohamed-Slim Alouini, Associate Vice President, Research
- Professor Panos Kalnis, Professor of Computer Science
- Professor Peter Wonka, Professor of Computer Science
- Professor Marco Canini, Professor of Computer Science
- Professor Hylke Beck, Assistant Professor, Environmental Science and Engineering
- Professor Jesper Tegner, Associate Dean of Students, Biomedical Sciences
- Professor David Pugh, Instructional Assistant Professor, CEMSE
- Professor Kangming Li, Assistant Professor, Material Science and Engineering
- Mohamed Abdel-Aal, Associate Vice President, Digital Innovation
- Mohamed Ujaimi, Chief Information Security Officer
- Saber Feki, Research Computing Core Labs Director
- Rob Anderson, Head of Research Compliance
- Jigisha Patel, Head of Legal
- Thibaut Lery, Strategic Planning Director
- Didier Baganda, Interim Director, Human Resources
- Daniel Nader, Senior Technology Consulting Specialist
Terms of reference at a glance
The working group has been asked to:
- Develop a clear institutional framework for AI adoption at KAUST.
- Recommend principles and guardrails that enable responsible, high-value use of AI across research, education, and professional services.
- Identify priority AI opportunities, use cases, and risks.
- Develop practical recommendations for the governance, operating model, institutional capabilities, funding arrangements, and support structures needed to enable responsible and scalable AI adoption across KAUST.
- Develop recommendations on the technologies, platforms, tools, and architectural approaches that KAUST should establish to support AI adoption across research, education, and professional services.
- Develop an implementation roadmap and identify decisions required from senior leadership.
We look forward to engaging with faculty, researchers, students, and staff as this important work progresses.
Best regards,
Professor Bernard Ghanem and Jonathan Churchill
Co-Chairs, KAUST AI Strategy Working Group