Cisco and KAUST Launch AI Institute to Drive AI Research and Talent Development in Saudi Arabia

Cisco and KAUST Launch AI Institute to Advance AI Research and Talent Development in Saudi Arabia

October 31, 2025

In the presence of His Royal Highness Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Minister of Energy and Chairman of the KAUST Board of Trustees, Cisco and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) announced a new AI Institute on the KAUST campus.

The Institute brings together Cisco's strengths in networking, security, and cloud-scale AI infrastructure with KAUST's research depth, advanced facilities, and graduate-level talent pipeline. It supports national priorities in research, innovation, and workforce development aligned with Saudi Vision 2030.

Why this matters for engineers and researchers

This Institute is set up to produce applied results, not just papers. Think high-impact projects, industry-grade infrastructure, and paths to deployment inside critical sectors across the Kingdom.

For practitioners, that means better access to compute, stronger industry partnerships, and programs that connect research with production use cases.

Focus areas

• AI-native communication systems that move data efficiently across clusters and networks.
• Advanced edge infrastructure for Industry 5.0, including intelligent factories and cyber-physical systems.
• Autonomous mobility and intelligent transport systems.
• AI use cases for water, energy, food, and health - domains with clear public value.

Infrastructure you can build on

Cisco will donate its latest technology to the Institute, including a Cisco AI POD - a modular, pre-validated AI infrastructure solution. It's a ready system for standing up data center capacity to run complex AI workloads with speed and security at scale.

This stack shortens time-to-compute, standardizes deployment, and simplifies operations for researchers and product teams working on training, fine-tuning, and inference.

Talent development at scale

The initiative includes a strong local talent agenda. Cisco has committed to provide free digital upskilling for 500,000 learners in Saudi Arabia over five years through Cisco Networking Academy, with a focus on AI, cybersecurity, data science, and programming. The Academy has already trained over 480,000 learners in the Kingdom, with 36% female participation.

If you're mapping roles to skills or planning your team's learning path, explore practical programs here: AI courses by job.

Governance and delivery model

The AI Institute will be overseen by a joint governing board with representatives from KAUST and Cisco to guide strategy and collaborative execution. It is part of Cisco's Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) program, which has supported digital transformation in Saudi Arabia since 2016 with 23 projects across healthcare, education, smart cities, and government services.

What the leaders said

Sir Edward Byrne AC, President, KAUST: The long-running partnership with Cisco has supported KAUST's digital-first campus and research vision. The new Institute equips students with skills for future jobs and reinforces the university's role in scientific and technological education and research, aligned with Vision 2030.

Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO, Cisco: Keeping pace with AI requires upskilling the workforce. The Cisco AI Institute at KAUST builds on a 25-year partnership with the Kingdom to expand opportunity and economic growth through AI.

What this means for your work

• Networking for AI workloads: Expect focus on high-throughput, low-latency fabrics (e.g., RoCEv2), observability, and secure multi-tenant designs for training and inference.
• Edge AI for industry: Tooling for sensor fusion, streaming analytics, MLOps at the edge, and OT/IT security for plant floors and critical infrastructure.
• Mobility and transport: Work on V2X, perception stacks, simulation, and digital twins tied to real-world telemetry and safety standards.
• Public-interest AI: Data pipelines and models for water, energy, food, and health - with an emphasis on reliability, governance, and measurable outcomes.
• Collaboration paths: Joint projects, internships, and funded research calls that link KAUST labs, Cisco teams, and industry partners.

The Institute's location at KAUST, strong governance, and enterprise-grade infrastructure point to one thing: faster movement from research to real deployments across the Kingdom. For engineers, scientists, and product teams, that means clearer pathways to build, test, and ship AI that matters.