The number and quality of students taking up graduate studies in artificial intelligence (AI) specializations at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) – the world’s first graduate AI university dedicated to research – continue to rise. This month, MBZUAI welcomed its largest and most diverse intake ever at a series of on-campus orientation events.
Academic seats were competitive, with more than 4800 applications received and a very competitive admission rate of 5%. This latest batch of 209 students includes the university’s first-ever computer science (CS) and robotics cohorts, having established two new departments and four associated graduate programs last year.
“This growth is a true testament to the university’s position as a leading institution in the AI landscape worldwide and our dedication to using AI for good to address real-world problems and have a positive impact on society and industry,” MBZUAI’s Provost, Professor Timothy Baldwin, said.
“A key factor in attracting international students and faculty to MBZUAI is the university’s reputation for diversity and inclusion, its research capabilities, compulsory internships, and the introduction and success of the Undergraduate Research Internship Program (UGRIP). The program has seen 79 international undergraduate students visit the Masdar City Campus during a four-week period in 2023 and 2024. Impressively, more than 50% of the participants in UGRIP’s inaugural edition applied and received offers to join MBZUAI this year.”
“We also continued to climb the world rankings thanks to our ever-increasing high-impact research output from students, researchers, and faculty. We have first- and second-year students publishing at top AI venues across the globe, and our 5:1 student-faculty ratio complements these incredible efforts in nurturing the next generation of specialists who will lead future AI innovation.”
The university has continued to attract high-caliber students, with 39 students coming from the world’s top 100 CS universities, including Cornell University, Tsinghua University, the University of California, San Diego, the University of Edinburgh, and University College London.
The Fall 2024 cohort represents 36 countries, including 44 Emiratis, with 147 studying for master’s degrees and 62 pursuing Ph.D. degrees in CS, computer vision (CV), machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and robotics.
The student body now stands at 381 students (30% female: 70% male) representing 49 countries.
This year, MBZUAI is building three new departments dedicated to human-computer interaction (HCI), statistics and data science, and computational biology, to help further develop the institution’s unique offerings, as well as interdisciplinary curriculum and research projects. MBZUAI continues to support the UAE’s ambitious innovation trajectory and provide a diverse pipeline of cutting-edge talent for local industry and applications markets.
September 5 marks five years since the university’s inception. MBZUAI is now recognized as one of the world’s top 100 computer science universities and is ranked in the top 20 for its specializations in AI, CV, ML, NLP, and robotics (CSRankings).
