Dr. Ehsan Ali Buheleg Head of Jawatha ConsultingPublished: July 12, 2026Share via Share via

The distinguished chemist Omar Yaghi, winner of the King Faisal Prize in 2015 and the Nobel Prize in 2025, left his professorship at the University of California, Berkeley this month to move as a full professor at Tsinghua University in the Chinese capital Beijing. As soon as I heard the news, a question persisted: Why did we not attract him to come to Saudi Arabia? To answer part of the question, it is important to understand why he left his beloved university in America, where he achieved spectacular global successes for and with it.

According to reports, Professor Yaghi's decision to leave resulted from several factors mixing unprecedented scientific opportunities in China with challenges facing the current research environment in the United States. Dr. Yaghi's mission in China is to establish and lead a new research institute focusing on using artificial intelligence in chemistry and materials science, aiming to accelerate the discovery and manufacturing of new advanced materials to overcome the slowness of traditional 'trial and error' methods. Dr. Yaghi considered this an opportunity 'to do science with more energy, intensity, and ambition than ever before.' On the other hand, what pushed him to leave his university Berkeley is the research funding crisis. Yaghi explicitly expressed his frustration with government cuts to research grants and financial support for science in the United States, describing the current research environment there as 'discouraging,' after the funding that academics rely on diminished. He also criticized the slowness of the American scientific system in adopting the 'artificial intelligence revolution' in chemistry quickly enough, considering that engaging with AI models is no longer a secondary option but a 'matter of survival' for advanced research systems to maintain their leadership.

It must be noted that this move was not sudden; Yaghi has had strong ties with Chinese institutions, having served as an honorary professor at Tsinghua University since 2022, and joined as a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2025. Most importantly, about half of the researchers he trained during his time at Berkeley (totaling about 200 researchers) are of Chinese nationality, providing him with a ready network of academic talent to support his new team as soon as he arrives in Beijing.

Now, why did Dr. Yaghi not come to Saudi Arabia, which has an ambitious agenda embodied in its National Industrial Strategy (one of the strategies of Saudi Vision 2030) that relies heavily on targets in technology and advanced industries related to new materials, chemistry, and artificial intelligence, supported by heavyweight entities from Aramco to SABIC to Ma'aden to Heumain to King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) to KAUST and other major Saudi universities? It can be argued that if these five entities were linked in a directed 'research and industrial alliance,' an integrated environment would form that surpasses in many aspects what Omar Yaghi will find in China, and would achieve an ideal alignment with the priorities of Saudi Vision 2030. Dr. Yaghi's research agenda (advanced materials, carbon capture, water harvesting from desert air, and accelerating chemical discovery with AI) seems as if it was specifically designed to meet Saudi Arabia's geographical and economic challenges. More specifically, his research intersects with this ecosystem as follows:

"Heumain": The AI engine: The main reason for Yaghi's departure is his desire to integrate AI with chemistry to accelerate materials discovery. Heumain, established by the Public Investment Fund to lead the AI sector, is capable of providing the immense computing power and infrastructure needed to model millions of chemical compounds (MOFs) in seconds. This intersection moves Yaghi's research from the pace of traditional labs to the speed of advanced computing.

2Aramco and SABIC: Platforms for industrial scaling: The biggest challenge facing any chemical innovation is converting it from 'grams' in the lab to commercial 'tons.' Aramco is tirelessly seeking carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies to achieve net zero. The metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) developed by Yaghi are among the world's best materials for efficiently capturing carbon dioxide. SABIC is leading the shift towards specialized chemicals to support the National Industrial Strategy, and Yaghi's research opens production lines for advanced materials used in gas purification, clean hydrogen storage, and advanced batteries. KAUST and KACST: Infrastructure and national alignment - KAUST already possesses one of the world's best infrastructures in materials science and computational science. Having a scientific leader of Dr. Yaghi's caliber would have completed this environment to become the undisputed global center in this specialty. KACST ensures directing this scientific effort to solve immediate national challenges within the research and development strategy. Yaghi's technology for 'harvesting water from extremely dry air' using solar energy perfectly matches Saudi water security priorities.

So, why did this convergence not happen, and why did Dr. Yaghi not come? Although the National Strategy for Research, Development, and Innovation explicitly focuses on 'environmental sustainability and basic needs' and 'energy of the future,' attracting an exceptional figure like Yaghi requires more than just having strong scattered components; it requires 'assembling' these capabilities into a single, flexible organizational structure. China offered Yaghi a ready-made institute exclusively dedicated to him, combining chemistry and AI, supported by a ready network of hundreds of Chinese researchers he previously mentored, sparing him the burden of building a new system from scratch or coordinating between multiple independent entities.

From a Saudi perspective, the proposed five-part system represents a precise 'roadmap' for creating a breakthrough innovation environment. If these entities (Heumain's data, Aramco/SABIC financing and plants, and KAUST/KACST labs) were framed in a single strategic alliance, Saudi Arabia would have been the most integrated destination for Yaghi's innovations, and would have presented an unprecedented global model in transforming complex research into a tangible industrial economy.

The moral: We must prepare by synthesizing an integrated ecosystem, even if Dr. Yaghi works on it remotely or part-time, supported by a capable local team and generous local funding.