AI will contribute to ‘new Golden Age for science’ says top KAUST academic

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology offers excellent research conditions and a high quality of life. The university also strongly supports research in artificial intelligence. (Shutterstock file photo)
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology offers excellent research conditions and a high quality of life. The university also strongly supports research in artificial intelligence. (Shutterstock file photo)
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Updated 27 May 2023

AI will contribute to ‘new Golden Age for science’ says top KAUST academic

AI will contribute to ‘new Golden Age for science’ says top KAUST academic
  • Schmidhuber says that AI is vital to today’s society, citing as proof technology that he helped to develop which is used by billions of people daily

RIYADH: A top academic at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology has said he believes that KAUST’s AI initiative will contribute to a new Golden Age for science — analogous to the Islamic Golden Age, when the Middle East was leading the world in science and technology.

Jurgen Schmidhuber, KAUST’s director of the AI initiative, and professor of computer science, said that artificial intelligence is already vital to society. Schmidhuber was speaking at the launch Summer Program for Artificial Intelligence 2023 at the KAUST Academy.

The program is a collaboration between the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority and KAUST and will, according to the organizers, serve as a stepping stone for enhancement of AI research and development, as well as an opportunity for researchers to expand their knowledge on the future of AI.




Jurgen Schmidhuber, KAUST’s director of AI initiative

The KAUST Academy will host two summer schools as part of its AI summer program led by Sultan Albarakati. One is for high school students and the other for top undergraduate students in Saudi Arabia.

“Apart from AI, the summer schools include a range of curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, including lessons of applied mathematics, scientific writing, presentation skills, leadership, and entrepreneurship,” said Schmidhuber.

He added that such training has already seen a number of young Saudis secure employment at major companies. “The young Saudis trained by the KAUST academy are already making an impact in the Kingdom,” he said. “Our graduates have secured positions in top organizations like Aramco, SDAIA and the Ministry of Information. Our students have also been selected for graduate studies in some of the top schools in the world.”

KAUST is now the university with the highest impact per faculty, ahead of the usual suspects such as Caltech and Princeton, Schmidhuber claimed.

“The Kingdom has very ambitious projects that will involve a lot of AI. The KAUST (leadership) knows that AI will change everything, strongly supports AI research, and convinced me to come here.”

The Kingdom has very ambitious projects that will involve a lot of artificial intelligence. The KAUST leadership knows that AI will change everything, strongly supports AI research, and convinced me to come here.

Jurgen Schmidhuber, KAUST’s director of AI initiative

Schmidhuber says that AI is vital to today’s society, citing as proof technology that he helped to develop which is used by billions of people daily.  

“For example, since the mid 2010s, the artificial neural networks developed in my labs have been on billions of smartphones, and used billions of times per day,” he said. “For example, Facebook’s automatic translation, Google’s speech recognition, Google Translate, Apple’s Siri, and Amazon’s Alexa.”

The German scientist’s admiration for technology and development began aged 15, he said, and his advice for students and researchers is to learn the fundamentals of math and science and to be a part of technology’s history.

“As a teenager in the 1970s, my goal became to build a machine that could learn and improve on its own, becoming much smarter than myself within my lifetime, restricted only by the limits of computability and physics, achieving super-intelligence through recursive self-improvement.”

Schmidhuber’s work has been recognized internationally and he has been called the “Father of Modern AI” by the media.  

He received the Helmholtz Award of the International Neural Network Society in 2013, and the Neural Networks Pioneer Award of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society in 2016 for “pioneering contributions to deep learning and neural networks.”

Schmidhuber said: “We have made a lot of progress since then, but there is still work left to be done. My advice is: Learn the basics of math, physics, computer science, and AI, and become part of history by helping to achieve the final goal! I envy the young people of today a bit, because they will have more time than me to enjoy the immense benefits of AI.”

Recent developments in technology have shown proven effectiveness in AI, Schmidhuber said, adding that it will eventually transform all aspects of our civilization.

“Actually, it’s getting harder and harder to find fields that are not affected by AI,” he said. “Every five years, computers are getting 10 times cheaper. The naive extrapolation of this exponential trend predicts that the 21st century will see cheap computers with a thousand times the raw computational power of all human brains combined. And soon there will be … trillions of such devices.

“Almost all of intelligence will be outside of human brains. Everything will change. This is more than just another industrial revolution. This is something new that will eventually transcend humankind and even biology,” he continued. “It is a privilege to witness its beginnings, and contribute something to it.”


Italian government lifts restrictions on export of military weapons to Saudi Arabia

Italian government lifts restrictions on export of military weapons to Saudi Arabia
Updated 18 sec ago

Italian government lifts restrictions on export of military weapons to Saudi Arabia

Italian government lifts restrictions on export of military weapons to Saudi Arabia
  • The decision ended an embargo that began in 2019

ROME: The Italian government on Wednesday lifted restrictions on the export of military weapons to Saudi Arabia, ending an embargo which began in 2019.

The move was announced in a communique at the end of a Council of Ministers presided over by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The decision was made “in accordance with the foreign and defense policy of Italy,” the official communique said.

Restrictions on the export of weapons from Italy to Saudi Arabia were imposed by the Italian government to prevent their use in the conflict in Yemen.

The Italian government added: “Today there is no more reason to keep those restrictions standing any longer.

“The regional context in Yemen has changed, and since April 2022, partly thanks to the truce, military activities have been sensibly circumscribed.”

Italy now believes that the reduction in military operations “significantly also mitigates the risk of misuse of bombs and missiles, particularly against civilian targets.”

Rome also acknowledged that the Kingdom “has pursued intensive diplomatic activity in support of UN mediation and was also active in a decisive manner on the economic and humanitarian assistance front.”

The press release added that in the light of the “changed situation of the conflict, the Council of Ministers states that the export of bombs and missiles to Saudi Arabia does not fall under the prohibitions of exports established by Italian laws, and is in accordance with the foreign and defense policy of Italy.”
 


Al-Jubeir meets ambassadors from US, Costa Rica

Al-Jubeir meets ambassadors from US, Costa Rica
Updated 31 May 2023

Al-Jubeir meets ambassadors from US, Costa Rica

Al-Jubeir meets ambassadors from US, Costa Rica
  • Al-Jubeir wished Ratney success in his new role and in fulfilling his duties

RIYADH: Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, minister of state for foreign affairs, on Wednesday met newly appointed US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Michael Ratney, in Riyadh.

Al-Jubeir wished Ratney success in his new role and in fulfilling his duties.

Al-Jubeir also met non-resident Francisco Chacon Hernandez, Costa Rica’s ambassador to the Kingdom. The parties discussed bilateral relations as well as issues of mutual interest.
 


Kenyan defense minister meets Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition chief

Kenyan defense minister meets Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition chief
Updated 21 min 41 sec ago

Kenyan defense minister meets Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition chief

Kenyan defense minister meets Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition chief

RIYADH: Secretary-General of the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition Maj. Gen. Mohammed bin Saeed Al-Moghedi met Kenyan Defense Minister Aden Bare Duale in Nairobi on Wednesday to discuss counterterrorism and violent extremism-related issues.

During his meeting with Al-Moghedi, the Kenyan minister praised the coalition’s framework – for military, counterterrorism, anti-terrorism financing, as well as intellectual and media matters – as a strategic pillar in fighting terrorism and violent extremism.

He added that terrorism has its roots in intellectual and ideological orientations, which constitute the basis of the extremist approach.

“Working on preparing the mindset and integrating it within the proper framework constitutes one of the proactive action pillars aimed to repress and contain extremist thinking,” Duale said.

Al-Moghedi said that strategic initiatives by the coalition in its counterterrorism efforts have taken into consideration the hierarchy of terrorist tendencies.

The secretary-general also spoke about social media and communication platforms, and their role in influencing users. He also discussed countering illegal terror financing through military support and assistance services.


Saudi Arabia’s population passes 32m, census results show

Saudi Arabia’s population passes 32m, census results show
Updated 28 min 19 sec ago

Saudi Arabia’s population passes 32m, census results show

Saudi Arabia’s population passes 32m, census results show
  • The number of males reached 19.7 million, 61 percent of the population, while the number of females reached 12.5 million, representing 39 percent
  • The 2022 census was conducted in line with the best international methodologies and by using satellite and self-enumeration technologies

RIYADH: The population of Saudi Arabia has reached 32.2 million, statistics from the 2022 census released by the General Authority for Statistics on Wednesday revealed.
Of the total number, Saudis made up 18.8 million people (58.4 percent), while non-Saudis accounted for 13.4 million, or 41.6 percent of the population.
The census results also revealed the Kingdom’s youthful population, with the median age being 29 and the proportion of Saudis aged under 30 reaching 63 percent of the population.
The number of males reached 19.7 million, 61 percent of the population, while the number of females reached 12.5 million, representing 39 percent.
Saudi Minister of Economy and Planning and General Authority for Statistics Chairman Faisal Al-Ibrahim said: “The Saudi census 2022 is an important national project, and its outputs will be a key pillar for planning and decision-making, developing economic and social policy, creating development plans for various sectors and services, and supporting the investment environment in the Kingdom and the achievement of Vision 2030 goals.”
General Authority for Statistics President Fahad Al-Dossari told Arab News that technological advancement allowed the authority to reach a confidence level of 95 percent for the 2022 census.
“Saudi census 2022 is the most accurate and comprehensive. It will be used as a foundation for the General Authority for Statistics’ projects, publications as well as numbers,” he added.
The 2022 census was conducted in line with the best international methodologies and by using satellite and self-enumeration technologies.
Error monitoring and automated data correction techniques were deployed to ensure the quality of the census data.
More than 1 million phone calls, 900,000 field visits, and advanced data analysis and statistics methods were used.
The comparisons included five different data sources, and more than 200 indicators reviewed data to confirm its accuracy.
Al-Dossari told Arab News: “For that reason, we decided to use 2022 as a base year for us to do the backcasting – an international practice whenever there is a new census – as an exercise to the previous census.
“We looked at 2022, and we backcasted based on the multiple sources of data that helped us estimate the changes and numbers of the census, especially from 2010 to today.”
The backcasted 2010 data shows that the total population of Saudi Arabia has increased by 8.2 million (34.2 percent) since 2010; the number of Saudis by 4.8 million (33.8 percent); and the number of non-Saudis by 3.5 million (34.7 percent).
The announcement of the Saudi census 2022 results included detailed data on three main categories: population, households and housing. Results on education, health, employment, income, migration and diversity will be announced over the next few months.
The authority will make the census results available on a dedicated website featuring interactive dashboards, easy-to-use interactive maps, reports, tables and charts. It will also host a livestreamed webinar covering the census methodology and key findings in the coming month.


Who’s Who: Hussain AbdRab Al-Nabi, vice president at SAP South Europe, Middle East and Africa

Who’s Who: Hussain AbdRab Al-Nabi, vice president at SAP South Europe, Middle East and Africa
Updated 11 min 53 sec ago

Who’s Who: Hussain AbdRab Al-Nabi, vice president at SAP South Europe, Middle East and Africa

Who’s Who: Hussain AbdRab Al-Nabi, vice president at SAP South Europe, Middle East and Africa

Hussain AbdRab Al-Nabi is an innovation and strategy marketing leader and expert who has worked in both marketing and finance fields. He is vice president and head of marketing strategy at SAP South Europe, Middle East and Africa.

He has contributed significantly to SAP throughout his more than decade-long experience with the company.

As VP, his responsibilities include developing and implementing cohesive marketing strategies for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and managing relationships with regional and global stakeholders across all departments.

AbdRab Al-Nabi is also executive marketing director at SAP for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. His responsibilities cover seven countries and more than 13 major cities.

Before that, he worked as head of marketing transformation at SAP, where he led a team for restructuring the scope of marketing within the targeted countries.

In 2016, he was appointed marketing director for the newly segmented market unit of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen, and as a financial services marketing program head for the MENA region. During that time, AbdRab Al-Nabi developed marketing programs for the financial services industry.

Previously at SAP, he was assigned as marketing lead for the public services and energy, and natural resources industries, and he worked closely with industry principles to drive a focused marketing plan.

He first joined SAP in 2011 as a country marketing manager, handling the marketing and demand generation initiatives in Saudi Arabian operations.

In 2008, AbdRab Al-Nabi worked at Zain Group as a segment manager of corporate marketing and acting head of business marketing.

Before that, he was a relationship manager in the commercial markets division at SAMBA Financial Group.

AbdRab Al-Nabi started his career in 2001 as a credit and marketing senior officer at ORIX Leasing company, and later worked as a financial controller at Arab National Bank.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. AbdRab Al-Nabi completed the Esade executive leadership program and the Misk leaders program last year. He has also obtained certifications from the Association of International Product Marketing and Management.