King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

In 2009, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) became the world’s first 21st century research university, located in a beautiful setting on the shores of the Red Sea in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. KAUST is building an open innovation model of technology transfer and economic development designed to foster technology-based economic development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. The KAUST campus includes a 3 million sq. meter research park with infrastructure, 600,000 sq. meter solar test bed and three laboratory buildings in the Innovation Cluster incubator. KAUST research centers focus on solar and wind energy, water desalination, chemical catalysis and earth science. KAUST Core Labs are one of the finest such concentrations in the world, including the world’s seventh largest supercomputer.