Head of Saudi tech institute pledges to limit China AI collaboration

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The new head of Saudi Arabia’s premier academic institution has promised to stop any artificial intelligence collaboration with China that could jeopardise the university’s access to US-made chips. 

Professor Sir Edward Byrne, who became head of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust) last month, said he would prioritise relationships with “the areas I know best, which are the UK, Europe and the US” and ensure that researchers at Kaust have access to the AI technology they need to carry out their work. 

“You know the more sensitive areas. I think we all know what they are. I’m absolutely committed to be totally observant of all relevant national regulations, including those relating to the US,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times. 

He continued: “The US collaborations are of critical importance. I have an absolute commitment as president to abide by all US trade regulations to enable those collaborations to continue. I still see room for collaboration with China in many areas. But not in the areas that the US government has very strict guidelines around, you know, access to US technology.”

The US has tightened its controls over export licences for its cutting edge AI chips as it tries to stop the technology leaking to China. There are now fears throughout the Middle East that the region will also be affected by the export controls. 

Microsoft, which has invested $1.5bn in G42, the biggest AI company in the United Arab Emirates, said last month that it needed more “clarity and consistency” over when AI chips can be shipped to the region. 

Byrne’s predecessor, Tony Chan, who has now left Kaust, expanded collaborations with China, and there were particular concerns over a joint AI project with the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and the Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data to build an Arabic-focused large language model called AceGPT. 

Inside Kaust, which was established in 2009 with a $10bn endowment by the late King Abdullah to become the country’s first graduate research university, there were fears that the depth of collaboration could prompt the US to cut the institute off from being able to procure the latest chips for its computers. 

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are racing to develop AI and build on their trade relationships with both the US and China without upsetting Washington, their main security partner. In May, a Saudi fund became the only foreign investor in China’s most prominent generative AI start-up.

Senior Saudi officials have been actively working to secure access to US-made advanced AI chips, particularly from Nvidia, with technology minister Abdullah Alswaha making multiple trips to the US in recent months for talks with his American counterparts and tech executives in Silicon Valley.

The kingdom last month hosted a major AI conference in Riyadh, where the governmental Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority exhibited an Arabic large-language model and announced a deal with Nvidia for 5,000 GPUs. An official told the FT that SDAIA already had access to 1,000 GPUs from the US firm, and they were optimistic about gaining access to more in the near future.