Abu Dhabi, UAE – 18 October 2022 — Dr. Horst Simon, formerly of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has been named director of the newly launched Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) Lab. The lab is an independent research centre dedicated to basic and applied research in data and computational sciences. From its base in Abu Dhabi, ADIA Lab will officially launch on 2 December 2022, the 51st National Day of the UAE.
Dr. Simon was at LBNL for more than 10 years as Deputy Laboratory Director for Research and Chief Research Officer. He most recently served as Senior Advisor to the Director of the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, a programme of the US Department of Energy. He has twice been awarded the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Gordon Bell Prize for outstanding achievements in High Performance Computing, and has received both the ACM SC Test of Time Award, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Computational Science and Engineering Career Award.
He is a member of the publishing team for the biannual TOP500 list of most powerful supercomputers, and is a SIAM Fellow.
ADIA Lab will operate as an independent, standalone entity, with broad research goals that are not specific to investment-related applications, designed to explore the latest trends and technologies in data and computational science across all major fields of study. This will include cutting-edge research in Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and High-Performance and Quantum Computing, with applications to areas such as climate change and energy transition, blockchain technology, financial inclusion and investing, decision making, automation, cybersecurity, health sciences, education, telecommunications, and space.
ADIA Lab will partner with academic and other institutions globally to design educational programmes, sponsor research projects and fund reproducible research, offer fellowships and internships, host seminars, and run competitions and Best Paper awards.
The launch of ADIA Lab will provide ADIA with the opportunity to connect and collaborate with global experts in the data and computational science community, while helping to embed a scientific mindset throughout its organisation. ADIA employees will also have the opportunity to attend ADIA Lab seminars and academic programmes, and conduct joint research projects.
ADIA Lab will play a proactive role in contributing to the continued development of Abu Dhabi’s digital ecosystem, with a focus on projects that could lead to the creation of start-ups. ADIA Lab will appoint an Advisory Board of global thought leaders from various data and computationally intensive scientific disciplines, which will be responsible for advising on the development and overseeing the implementation of its research agenda and programmes.
