ADIA Lab Climate Science RFP – 2025
Award Announcement
During 2025, ADIA Lab received 63 proposals from academic and industry research institutions spanning 23 countries, underscoring the Lab’s growing global footprint and credibility as a convener of impactful, cross-disciplinary climate science research.
Following an anonymous peer-review process by subject-matter experts and a subsequent evaluation by the ADIA Lab Advisory Board, ADIA Lab publicly announced the winning project during the opening day of the 2025 ADIA Lab Symposium on October 27, 2025:
Climate Co-Pilot: A Multimodal AI Agent for Climate Resilience in the MENA Region
Award announcement recording
Project presentation
About the Awarded Project
Principal Investigator: Dr. Salman Khan (MBZUAI)
Project Co-Principle Investigators:
Prof. Duncan Watson-Parris -
University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
Dr. Jonathan Ferrer Mestres -
G42 Inception; Abu Dhabi Climate Tech Lab
Microsoft AI4Good Lab
Project Overview
Objective:
To build an interactive, AI-powered agent—Climate Co-Pilot—that helps regional stakeholders in the MENA region forecast and plan for climate-related water and agriculture risks.
Key Use Cases:
Water Resource Management: Forecasting aquifer and reservoir levels using fused satellite, in-situ, and climate reanalysis data.
Agricultural Adaptation: Detecting early signs of crop stress using thermal and vegetation indices and generating climate-adaptive recommendations.
Key Innovations:
Development of a Multimodal Foundation Model trained on physical climate data, satellite imagery, and scientific text.
Deployment of an Agentic AI Pipeline that can decompose user queries into orchestrated workflows (e.g., data retrieval, simulation, and report generation).
Integration of Reinforcement Learning from Expert Feedback (RLHF) to ensure scientific robustness and operational relevance.
Expected Outcomes:
Real-time, scientifically grounded decision support for extreme weather and climate uncertainty.
Open-source datasets, AI models, and a UAE-based Climate AI Hub hosted on ADIA Lab and MBZUAI platforms.
Annual summer internships and training sessions in AI4Climate as part of ADIA Lab’s capacity-building agenda.