R&D moves up Abu Dhabi's agenda

New ATRC board raises priority of R&D, reinforces Abu Dhabi's commitment

Advanced Technology Research Council offices in Masdar City (Image credit: ATRC)

The announcement of the new Advanced Technology Research Council's board of directors clearly signals the growing importance of R&D in Abu Dhabi's future plans.

His Highness Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of Abu Dhabi Executive Council, issued a resolution to restructure the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC) board of directors this week, bringing together some of the biggest stakeholders in Abu Dhabi's technology vision, and some of the emirate's foremost proponents of AI.

The ATRC was established as an independent legal entity affiliated to the Abu Dhabi Executive Council in 2020, with the goal of making the emirate a world-leading research hub and a magnet for the world's brightest technology talent. The council provides direction, governance and creates initiatives to maximise the contribution from Abu Dhabi's research and development (R&D) ecosystem. In addition, Technology Innovation Institute (TII) was founded under the umbrella of the ATRC to pioneer key areas of technology research in Abu Dhabi that are strategic or require long-term investment.

Serial technology entrepreneur Faisal Abdulaziz Al Bannai was made Secretary General of the Advanced Technology Research Council from the outset. 

Al Bannai founded Axiom Telecom in his early career, building it into the largest distributor of mobile devices in the Middle East, with a multi-billion dollar turnover. He went on to found DarkMatter, a global cyber security service provider, which some might say provided the proof of concept for computer R&D in the UAE. 

In 2019, the then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi (now ruler and UAE president), Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, appointed Al Bannai to head up Edge, a new defence conglomerate that combined more than 25 state-owned and independent companies, with a mandate to develop advanced technology systems for both national needs and global export.

With his strong tech credentials, knowledge of computer systems development and reputation for identifying new opportunities, Al Bannai was perhaps the ideal choice to head up the ATRC. After the creation of the council, he quickly established the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) as a computational R&D powerhouse, attracting advanced technology talent from all over the world. Meanwhile, under the umbrella of policy, vision and support that the ATRC provides, Abu Dhabi has certainly become one of the fastest growing R&D ecosystems in the world.

The new resolution to restructure the ATRC board of directors increases its size and its power, reflecting both the success of the council itself, and the emirate's R&D strategy so far, whilst confirming Abu Dhabi's strong commitment to invest in R&D moving forward. The decision expands the board from four members to six members, including Al Bannai, and includes two UAE government ministers and the head of Abu Dhabi's largest sovereign wealth fund.

The new board, chaired by the Crown Prince, includes the following directors:

• H.E. Faisal Al Bannai - Secretary General of ATRC; CEO and Managing Director of EDGE; and Member of the Board of Trustees of Khalifa University of Science and Technology (KU).

• H.E. Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CBE - Board Member ATRC; UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Managing Director and Group CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), Chairman of Masdar; Special Envoy for Climate Change; UAE COP28 President-Designate; and Chairman of the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) Board of Trustees.

• H.E. Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi - Board Member ATRC; UAE Minister of Investment; Managing Director and CEO, ADQ (a sovereign wealth fund); Chairman of Emirates Water & Electricity Company; Vice Chairman of Abu Dhabi Power Corporation; and Board Member of the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation’s Board of Directors.

• H.E. Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak - Board Member ATRC;  Managing Director and Group Chief Executive Officer of Mubadala Investment Company (a sovereign wealth fund); Member of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council; Founding Member of Abu Dhabi’s Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs; Presidential Special Envoy to China since 2018; and Founding Chairman of the Executive Affairs Authority.

• H.E. Mansoor Ibrahim Al Mansoori - Board Member of ATRC; Chairman of Abu Dhabi's Department of Health; Member of Abu Dhabi Executive Council; Chairman at Presight AI Holding PLC (ADX:PRESIGHT); Board Member of e&; and a Member of the MBZUAI Board of Trustees.

• H.E. Ahmed Tamim Al Kuttab - Board Member of ATRC; Member of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council; Chairman of the Department of Government Support; Director of the Executive Office of ADNOC; and a Member of the MBZUAI Board of Trustees.

Over the past five years, Abu Dhabi's R&D community has grown in numbers from dozens, to thousands of research staff, analysts and coders. It's quickly earned a reputation for creating the right environment and providing the right incentives to attract some of the world's leading technology research leaders. The emirate has also managed to align the vision, funding and talent to allow its R&D ecosystem to focus on valuable research, with a minimum of bureaucracy.

Research teams in Abu Dhabi are today driving projects across key AI disciplines, advanced materials, agriculture, aviation, biotechnology, cryptography, energy, environment, high performance computing (HPC), human genomes, medicine, robotics, security, space and more.

Now, with the ATRC’s powerful new board at the centre of policymaking, Abu Dhabi is poised to take its R&D hub to the next level.

Also read:

• Making R&D a national priority (Middle East AI News)

• Abu Dhabi's latest R&D milestone (Middle East AI News)