HBKU and QRDI Enter Partnership to Advance National Tech Capabilities
With HBKU’s academic and research expertise and QRDI’s advancement of Qatar’s RDI ecosystem, the program aims to produce a highly skilled workforce aligned with national priorities in emerging technologies.
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[Image source: Chetan Jha/MITSMR Middle East]
In a bid to advance Qatar’s technical capabilities, Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) and the Qatar Research, Development, and Innovation (QRDI) Council have entered into a strategic partnership, announced on Thursday on the sidelines of Web Summit Qatar 2026.
The agreement will see the latter invest $1 million in the university’s newly launched Master’s program in Integrated Circuits and Intelligent Systems Design.
“This funding agreement with QRDI reflects a shared commitment to advancing Qatar’s capabilities in semiconductor and intelligent systems technologies. Through this partnership, we are preparing a new generation of highly skilled talent equipped with the expertise and innovation mindset required to lead in critical fields that will shape Qatar’s knowledge-based economy and global competitiveness and be responsive to evolving technological needs and trends,” said Ahmad M. Hasnah, President, Hamad Bin Khalifa University.
With HBKU’s academic and research expertise and QRDI’s advancement of Qatar’s RDI ecosystem, the program aims to produce a highly skilled workforce aligned with national priorities in emerging technologies.
The program will provide students with rigorous theoretical grounding alongside applied training in integrated circuits, embedded systems, intelligent hardware architectures, and hardware-to-software co-design. It will be led by renowned faculty and researchers in electronic and computer engineering and will be accompanied by a curriculum designed with experiential learning, industry-relevant projects, and research-driven instruction in mind.
“This partnership reflects QRDI Council’s focus on building deep technical capability in areas where advanced skills are critical to long-term competitiveness,” said Omar Al-Ansari, Secretary General, QRDI Council.
“We are supporting engineers with practical experience in semiconductor design, intelligent hardware, and system-level integration by funding HBKU’s master’s program in Integrated Circuits and Intelligent Systems Design. These skills are necessary to promote the development of advanced industries and convert research into deployable solutions. Talent development is directly linked to actual technological and industrial priorities when academia and the larger RDI ecosystem work well together.”
The initiative aims to translate academic excellence into practical capabilities for Qatar and the world.
