KAUST Named “Laboratory of the Year”
March 3, 2011 – King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) has been named “Laboratory of the Year” in the new construction category for 2011 by R&D Magazine. The university consists of 19.7 square miles (51.02 square kilometers) of facilities, including 7.5 square miles (19.42 square kilometers) of laboratory facilities, located on 9,000 acres near the Red Sea, north of Jeddah. KAUST’s advanced laboratories include a computation and visualization facility which features the highest resolution and brightest virtual environment in the world, as well as an imaging and characterization laboratory with comprehensive facilities for scanning, microscopy, magnetic and thermal measurements, and other instrumentation for materials characterization. KAUST also partnered with IBM to establish a supercomputing research center hosting the Shaheen supercomputer.
With housing accommodations for 20,000 people, the campus also includes schools, recreational facilities, stores, and other services. U.S. company HOK Group, Inc. planned and engineered the campus, with French company Oger International as the architect of record. The entire project was completed in an accelerated 30 months and was opened in September 2009 with over 800 graduate students from more than 60 countries.