Abstract
The establishment of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in 2009 was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream of its founder, the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. His vision for the university was deeply rooted in the historical and cultural contexts of the Middle East. Though KAUST is a modern university that shares many of the operational mechanisms of western universities such as faculty evaluation and promotion, degree requirements, and the like, the university has a unique model of operation that deviates from most modern universities in several important aspects. While the original four areas of research focus did not include computer science or computational sciences, these topics were a target of substantial investment from the beginning.