Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) opened with seven faculty members and a singular proposition: that research in artificial intelligence had advanced enough to warrant a university built entirely around it.
Today, the university has 160+ faculty — among them recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, and fellows of the IEEE, ACM, and the International Society for Computational Biology. Its student body has passed 900, drawn from over 50 countries. It is ranked 10th globally across AI, computational biology, computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing, and robotics by CSRankings — ahead of institutions that have been building their reputations for a century.
It has done this, in the words of MBZUAI President and University Professor Eric Xing, by “showing results, making a visible difference, and then asking stakeholders to top up and double down because of the results.”
MBZUAI is now seeking a Provost.
The university introduced a five-divisional academic structure in 2026. Two divisions are operational: Computing and Mathematical Sciences, led by Dean Éric Moulines, and Biological and Life Sciences, led by Dean Eran Segal. Three further divisions are in development. The undergraduate program is in its second year. The faculty community, already distinguished, continues to grow.
This is a role for someone who wants to help build an institution — not manage a settled one — at a moment when the field it is built around is reshaping every other field, in a city and a country that have made a serious commitment to making that happen.
The character of the institution is worth understanding. Professor Xing describes it as a forge: faculty are the core of the institution; research is evaluated on intellectual merit and scientific impact, not grant volume; and teaching is the primary duty of every faculty member, including the most senior.
The university has replaced the classical department structure, with divisions designed to reward interdisciplinary collaboration and large-scale, problem-driven research — while preserving the intellectual freedom and rigor that distinguish academic science from everything else. By the end of its second phase of growth, Xing has set a target of at least 30 percent of faculty holding membership of national academies or fellowships of their professional societies.
The Provost will report to and work in close partnership with President Xing, himself an active researcher and one of the most cited figures in his field. Where the President sets the vision and overarching institutional strategy, the Provost gives that strategy academic form — translating it into programs, policies, and institutional practices that enable faculty and student success. At a university planning for significant growth, much of that work remains to be done, and existing approaches should be expected to be reconsidered.
The right candidate will bring the scholarly standing to earn the respect of a distinguished faculty, the leadership experience to run a complex and fast-moving academic enterprise, and the ambition to do something that has not been done before.
About Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence
Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) is the first university dedicated exclusively to advancing scientific discovery through artificial intelligence. Founded by the UAE’s visionary leadership in 2019, MBZUAI was established to educate exceptional talent, cultivate a world-class innovation ecosystem, and serve as a strategic resource for both the public and private sectors.
The University takes inspiration from its namesake, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan , President of the United Arab Emirates, reflecting a national commitment to harnessing AI and advanced technology for progress, prosperity, and public good.
MBZUAI’s Board of Trustees brings together internationally recognized leaders from academia, technology, industry and government. His Excellency Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak is the Chairman of MBZUAI’s Board of Trustees, which includes Professor Daniela Rus of MIT and Dr. Lisa Su, Chair and CEO of AMD.
MBZUAI attracts distinguished researchers and faculty across computer science/AI, robotics, computational biology and related fields. Through its academic programs and research enterprise, the University develops transformative AI solutions with real-world impact while helping shape how societies imagine, design, and build the future. MBZUAI is currently ranked 10th globally in CSRankings across its core specializations, including artificial intelligence, computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing, robotics, and computational biology. In 2025, MBZUAI conferred its inaugural Honorary Doctorate on Sam Altman.
The Institute of Foundation Models (IFM) at MBZUAI is a global center of excellence advancing the science, scale, and real-world impact of foundation models. With teams across Abu Dhabi, Silicon Valley, and Paris, IFM brings together world-class researchers and engineers to develop leading language, vision, multimodal, and domain-specific AI models. Its work combines cutting-edge research, high-performance computing, open collaboration, and responsible innovation to build AI systems that are technically advanced, socially meaningful, and designed to address real-world challenges.
University Leadership Eric Xing President and University Professor
As MBZUAI’s first president, Professor Xing has led the University’s extraordinary growth in fundamental AI research and has presided over the assemblage of a world-class cadre of eminent faculty.
At MBZUAI, Professor Xing has created a platform for students and faculty to showcase their research at a national level and in alignment with national priorities, while maintaining excellence and a strong balance in basic research and translational R&D.
With a wealth of experience in academia as an active and world-leading scientist, and as an entrepreneur and administrator, Professor Xing serves as an ambassador from the innovation frontier to educate and train those in the emerging and sometimes chaotic field of artificial intelligence and its application in the real world.
Under Professor Xing’s direction, numerous partnerships have been established with IBM, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), MIT, AWS, the Gates Foundation, the Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (SEHA), the Abu Dhabi Department of Energy, the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, and many more.
Professor Xing has built academic homes and robust curriculums for faculty and students to get the most from their time at the University. He has developed a one-of-a-kind executive and professional training program for senior executives and government leaders, as well as a pioneering undergraduate program.
He has brought together an operations team which is leading the rapid growth of the institution.
As a world-leading computer scientist, Professor Xing excels in theory, application, and system at the same time. His major contributions lie in the foundational work of statistical machine learning methodology, including pioneering work in distance metric learning; statistical models and analyses of networks; methods for learning and analyzing graphical models; and new systems, theories, and algorithms for distributed machine learning.
His work also focuses on foundation models and world models, including leadership of the Institute of Foundation Models (IFM) and the development of systems such as PAN and K2 series. He has played a leading role in advancing open and reproducible large language models through initiatives such as LLM360 and models including Vicuna and JAIS. His work also extends into AI for science, where he leads efforts on AI-Driven Digital Organisms (AIDO), Virtual Cell modeling, and large-scale biological foundation models such as GET, alongside contributions to benchmarking and evaluation infrastructure that underpin modern AI research.
Professor Xing supports greater access to AI and open-source platforms to encourage scalable, sustainable, and repeatable processes which opens doors to greater research and industrial possibilities. As a thought leader, Xing is continually bringing together the AI community from around the world to pursue ideas which will impact society in the most beneficial way. He founded the CASL open-source project to help standardize the first truly commercial and versatile AI operating system that will make for better and seamless AI engineering and production.
Professor Xing is a recipient of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Computer Science, the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award, and the IBM Open Collaborative Research Faculty Award. He is a board member of the International Machine Learning Society (IMLS). He is a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and of the American Statistical Association (ASA). In 2023, he was elected a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and in 2026, a fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB).
Professor Xing holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Rutgers University, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He completed his undergraduate study at Tsinghua University.
Academic Divisions
At MBZUAI, we are building a comprehensive university for the future: one that brings together the full spectrum of science and technology, powered by artificial intelligence.
While AI and computer science remain the foundation of everything we do, our divisions let us expand into new disciplines and widen the ground for interdisciplinary work. That is how we take on problems no single field solves alone.
Our operating model combines the enduring strengths of academia (curiosity, intellectual independence, rigorous scholarship) with the collaborative, solution-driven spirit of industry. This approach lets us pursue bold scientific discoveries and turn them into real-world impact, while educating the people who will carry that work forward.
MBZUAI operates under a divisional academic model, structured across five divisions:
- Computing and Mathematical Sciences
- Biological and Life Sciences
- Humanities, Social and Management Sciences
- Natural and Physical Sciences
- Engineering and Applied Sciences
Our Division of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, home to more than 600 students, brings together the disciplines that form the foundations of AI, including machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, computer science, statistics and data science, human-computer interaction, and robotics. Led by Dean Éric Moulines, the division advances the mathematical and computational breakthroughs that underpin the next generation of AI technologies.
Biological and Life Sciences
Our Division of Biological and Life Sciences, home to around 50 students, sits at the intersection of biology, population health, and artificial intelligence. Through advances in computational biology, genomics, precision medicine, and digital health, we are transforming healthcare and improving lives. Led by Dean Eran Segal, the division builds on internationally recognized expertise, including the Human Phenotype Project (HPP), to advance AI-enabled healthcare and biomedical discovery.
Humanities, Social and Management Sciences
Our Division of Humanities, Social and Management Sciences examine how AI is reshaping decision-making, work, governance, policies and the broader social fabric. Through interdisciplinary research spanning economics, psychology, public policy, organizational behaviour, ethics, and innovation management, the division develops evidence-based approaches to ensure AI is deployed responsibly, effectively, and for the benefit of society.
Academic Programs
MBZUAI is a modern research university offering degree programs at the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels. At the start of the 2026/27 academic year, over 900 students are enrolled in its distinctive academic model. The University prepares the next generation of AI leaders with the knowledge, skills, and practical experience to contribute from day one and address complex global challenges.
Undergraduate Program:
MBZUAI offers a Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence, with two distinctive streams in business and engineering in a unique 3+1 model. The program currently serves around 250 students. This is an elite program designed for exceptional students and future leaders with technical and creative talent, ambition, and drive. Students learn from experienced global entrepreneurs and benefit from a strong emphasis on experiential learning, including a final-year, full-time cooperative education placement supported by MBZUAI’s Career Services and Internship team and aligned with students’ academic and professional goals.
Master’s Programs:
MBZUAI offers eight master’s programs , including seven M.Sc. degrees across Computer Science, Computer Vision, Computational Biology, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Robotics, Statistics and Data Science, and a Master in Applied Artificial Intelligence (MAAI). These graduate programs are designed for career-oriented students who bring entrepreneurial ambition, intellectual curiosity, and a commitment to using AI to transform industries and advance evidence-based decision-making. Across its master’s offerings, graduate students are encouraged to pursue continuous improvement, innovation, and research-informed leadership. With the exception of the MAAI program, all M.Sc. programs offer full scholarships that include tuition, accommodation, healthcare, a student visa, and a generous monthly stipend.
Ph.D. Programs:
MBZUAI offers eight prestigious and globally ranked doctoral programs dedicated to the study of artificial intelligence, all of which include a full scholarship covering tuition, accommodation, healthcare, a student visa, and a monthly stipend. Doctoral students can undertake AI specializations across Computational Biology, Computer Science, Computer Vision, Human-Computer Interaction, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Robotics, and Statistics and Data Science, where they engage in cutting edge research, contributing to top-tier scientific literature, and thought leadership driven by career aspirations into academia, research institutes, industry, or startups.
Faculty
MBZUAI’s faculty mission is framed around dual goals — pure research excellence and applied societal impact — reflecting the university’s aim to attract top scholars who are not only capable of producing groundbreaking research but also driven to create real-world impact, paired with the university’s dedicated resources and research funding to enable and encourage exceptional research, teaching, scholarly publications and societal impacts. Across two divisions, 160+ faculty are the foundation of the academic enterprise, with one of the world’s most concentrated faculties dedicated exclusively to artificial intelligence, with 45 faculty members coming directly from top100 global AI institutions. The faculty expertise spans the full spectrum of AI, from machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, robotics, and computer science to rapidly expanding areas including human-computer interaction, computational biology, and statistics and data science.
Research and Innovation
Research and innovation are central to MBZUAI’s mission to advance artificial intelligence for the benefit of society. Unlike traditional universities where AI is one discipline among many, MBZUAI is uniquely organized as an AI-first research institution, enabling deep collaboration across machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, robotics, computer science, computational biology, statistics, and emerging interdisciplinary fields. The University’s focused model accelerates the translation of fundamental discoveries into real-world applications spanning healthcare, climate, energy, education, mobility, and digital government.
The University has established an ambitious research ecosystem that combines world-class faculty, state-of-the-art computational infrastructure, strategic industry partnerships, and international collaborations. Faculty and research teams regularly contribute to the world’s premier AI conferences and journals while developing technologies with commercial and societal impact. MBZUAI has also invested in innovation through dedicated entrepreneurship initiatives, startup support, technology commercialization, and partnerships with government and industry, positioning the University as both a generator of scientific breakthroughs and a catalyst for economic development. Aligned with the visionary leadership of the University and the UAE’s national strategy for innovation and sustainable development, MBZUAI’s research and innovation ecosystem empowers faculty, students, researchers, and collaborators to address critical global challenges while driving the UAE’s position as a global hub for AI excellence.
Current Research Projects reflect MBZUAI’s pioneering work across key areas of artificial intelligence. Major research areas and centers include:
- Generative AI & Institute of Foundation Models (IFM) Advancing foundation models and generative AI, including large-scale, multimodal, and next-generation AI systems.