The new provost at Abu Dhabi’s pioneering artificial intelligence university is putting together a playbook to compete with the world’s top institutions of higher learning.
Prof Fakhreddine Karray joined Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, or MBZUAI, this month. His list of priorities is short but ambitious: recruit world-class faculty, produce research with commercial applications and promote an entrepreneurial culture among students.
“We are aiming to have a calibre of excellence that is matched by some of the top universities around the world,” Prof Karray told The National.
But the opportunity is not only to build another prestigious academic programme, he said. Abu Dhabi has a unique role to fill as a regional leader in the field of AI, and is the only graduate-level university in the world singularly developing AI tools.
We are reaching out to some of the top scholars in the field of AI from all over the world to come here to join us to work with us as visiting professors or as affiliated professors, or to hire them outright
Prof Fakhreddine Karray
With more than 100 graduate degree programmes in AI globally, the technology’s development and education centres are largely concentrated in North America, China and the UK.
“We aim to make MBZUAI one of the icons in the field of AI in this particular region through publishing research ... and also by generating prototypes [and] start-ups out of the ideas of the professors and the students,” Prof Karray said.
“We are reaching out to some of the top scholars in the field of AI from all over the world to come here to join us to work with us as visiting professors or as affiliated professors, or to hire them outright,” he said. Some of them are former colleagues of his and of university president Eric Xing.
“Our aim is for quality, quality, quality for faculty and for students ... we are focusing on faculty members’ excellence, generous funding from the government and outstanding students that could help support what we want to establish here,” he said.
“That whole ecosystem will make MBZUAI unique in its outreach to the society, to the economy and to the academic world as well.”
A renowned researcher of self-aware machines and autonomous systems, in his previous post Prof Karray was the founding co-director of the Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
The University of Waterloo has the world’s biggest co-op programme, short for co-operative education, which matches classroom theory with hands-on learning through full-time employment prior to graduation. Prof Karray, who is Tunisian, said he wants to “import” those practices to the region, to build partnerships with corporations and governments and provide real-world experience to students.
Some of Prof Karray’s most recent research projects include autonomous detection systems for distracted driving, remote monitoring of elderly patients through home-based systems of sensors and forecasting price fluctuations in supply chains for food. He is eager to replicate and expand upon that work in Abu Dhabi.
AI is expected to add 14 per cent to the world’s gross domestic product by 2030, equivalent to $15.7 trillion (Dh57.7tn), according to business consultancy PwC. Experts estimate that AI’s contribution to the UAE economy will match the global increase of 14 per cent – the largest GDP share in the Middle East – in the same time frame. The country ranks 19th worldwide on the government AI readiness index, first in the region, according to Oxford Insights.
The university’s curriculum is currently focused on three areas: machine learning, which provides the mathematical foundation of AI, and computer vision, which takes machine learning a step further to identify and analyse pictures and videos. The third course, natural-language processing, was added this semester, with students developing tools to allow computers to communicate with people using everyday language.
Prof Karray said in coming years the university will expand its offerings to include robotics in health care and energy, aimed at applications that can benefit the UAE.
As AI becomes more sophisticated, there is growing concern over bias and ethical grey areas in its development. Increasingly, governments, research bodies and companies are laying out principles to inform its development and responsible use.
Prof Karray said it was still too soon to formalise AI ethical frameworks. He plans to build an advisory board to take on ethical concerns about the university's research, privacy, and access to and use of data. He said the board would operate on a project by project basis.
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
The biog
Name: Younis Al Balooshi
Nationality: Emirati
Education: Doctorate degree in forensic medicine at the University of Bonn
Hobbies: Drawing and reading books about graphic design
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
A little about CVRL
Founded in 1985 by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory (CVRL) is a government diagnostic centre that provides testing and research facilities to the UAE and neighbouring countries.
One of its main goals is to provide permanent treatment solutions for veterinary related diseases.
The taxidermy centre was established 12 years ago and is headed by Dr Ulrich Wernery.
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