Majid F. Al-Ghaslan

Majid F. Al-Ghaslan is interim CIO at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology and is responsible for the development, support, and operation of innovative technology solutions and services that advance learning and discovery at KAUST. He worked closely with the University provost and the senior leadership to innovatively leverage technology to advance and support the mission and goals of KAUST. Majid is also the leader in the acquisition, design and development of Shaheen supercomputer for KAUST. This system is based on IBM BlueGene/P architecture and will be the most powerful system in the Middle East. He also led the establishment of the KAUST IBM Center for Deep Computing Research, a joint development & research agreement with IBM for research enablement and in HPC with IBM based on BlueGene/P. He was also a key architect for the KAUST partnership with USCD Calit2 & Mechdyne to establish the KAUST Geometric Modeling & Scientific Visualization Research Center Facility. The world’s first center that has unmatched visualization capability that will enable the researchers at KAUST to explore cutting edge science. The flagship six-sided CAVE called CORNEA will be the first in the Middle East with this visualization capacity.

During his career at Saudi Aramco, Mr. Al-Ghaslan held several leadership roles in various areas of Information Technology. Earlier in his career he led a team that designed and deployed a carrier-class high-speed backbone communications network and connectivity for Saudi Aramco's mission-critical applications that called for near zero downtime. Majid also established the Network Protection Group at Saudi Aramco to deny unauthorized persons access to sensitive confidential information of value and prevent disruption of critical telecommunications services. He was also involved in various business automation programs and IT initiatives such as Saudi Aramco’s business continuity, companywide wireless/mobile deployment, and deterministic delivery of video/voice/data services including command and control data over a unified infrastructure.

Mr. Al-Ghaslan began his career with Saudi Aramco in 1992. He holds various IT certifications and his main areas of interests are Internet scale technologies, high-speed deterministic networks, wireless technologies, and IT security.

Mr. Al-Ghaslan attended Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, and The University of the Pacific, Stockton, Calif., where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science with an outstanding graduating senior award from the University’s Computer Science Department. Mr. Al-Ghaslan is a member of the Internet Society and the ACM.