Abu Dhabi's AI university sees 47% increase in student intake
Abu Dhabi's AI university sees 47% increase in student intake
209 students join MBZUAI masters and PhD courses this year
#UAE #education - Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), the world’s first graduate AI research university, has welcomed its largest and most diverse cohort of 209 students for this year’s intake. This new cohort shows a 47 percent increase on last year’s intake of 142 students, and includes the university’s first-ever groups in computer science and robotics. The latest intake demonstrates that MBZUAI’s student body (and so future output) is growing as fast as its stature in the global computational sciences academic community.
SO WHAT? - Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence was established five years ago by the Abu Dhabi government to bring some of the brightest minds to the UAE and create exceptional local and global AI talent for the local ecosystem. Today, MBZUAI is today recognised as one of the world’s top 100 universities across all of computer science, and is ranked in the top 20 globally across AI, computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and robotics1. However, the demand for specialised AI talent is growing fast and so achieving quality outputs alone is insufficient: the institution must also be in step with that growing demand. The significant increase in size of this year’s student cohort confirms that MBZUAI aims to not only produce world class AI graduates, but more of them too.
Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), the world’s first graduate AI research university, has welcomed 209 students, the largest in the university’s history.
The university’s most diverse student intake to-date, the cohort includes students from 36 countries, with a notable presence of 44 Emiratis, showcasing MBZUAI’s commitment to both attracting top talent and nurturing local potential.
For the first time, MBZUAI has enrolled students in its new computer science and robotics masters and PhD courses.
The university received over 4,800 applications, accepting just 5%, demonstrating the competitive nature of the admissions process.
Of the new students, 147 are pursuing master’s degrees and 62 are working towards Ph.D.s in computer science, computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing, and robotics.
MBZUA’s student body now consists of 30% female and 70% male students, totaling 381 individuals from 49 countries, showing an increase in diversity.
The new cohort includes 39 students from top global computer science universities like Cornell, Tsinghua, and the University of Edinburgh.
MBZUAI has climbed to the top 100 computer science universities globally and is in the top 20 for AI specialties, driven by high-impact research from its students and faculty. The university recently announced that, between January and June 2024, it published a further 300 papers.
MBZUAI also has plans to add three new departments: human-computer interaction, statistics and data science, and computational biology, which it hopes will enhance interdisciplinary studies and research.
ZOOM OUT - Backed by the government’s commitment to leading in AI, the UAE has become one of the fastest growing AI ecosystems in the world. The country is home to Dubai International Financial Centre’s Dubai AI Campus, the largest concentration of AI and Web3 companies in the Middle East, and Abu Dhabi’s AI R&D ecosystem, which arguably has both the biggest critical mass of AI research talent and the region’s most significant AI research output. Demand for top AI talent is increasing, with both the commercial and government sectors frequently having to hire globally for key AI roles.
IMO - To keep its momentum in the highly competitive AI space, the UAE will have to continue to develop national talent, attract promising global graduates, and work hard to hire and retain top AI professionals. This ensures plenty of room for growth for MBZUAI and also other universities in the UAE to build and diversify their AI faculties.
According to CSRankings