Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) has concluded the 2025 edition of its highly competitive Undergraduate Research Internship Programme (UGRIP), attracting nearly 2,000 applicants globally and welcoming a record-breaking, fully funded cohort of 57 students from 24 countries.
Hosted on MBZUAI’s Abu Dhabi campus, UGRIP 2025 offered top-tier STEM students in their final or penultimate undergraduate year a four-week deep dive into AI research. Participants hailed from globally renowned institutions, including the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland, the University of Campinas, and the Monterrey Institute of Technology.
With an acceptance rate of just 4%, UGRIP 2025 proved to be one of the world’s most selective undergraduate programs in AI research. The programme allowed students to collaborate with leading faculty on advanced projects spanning machine learning, computer vision, robotics, natural language processing, and core AI disciplines with real-world applications.
This year’s cohort worked on projects ranging from early-stage brain-machine interfaces to dialectal Arabic translation, interactive music generation, tumour detection, and bias detection in media systems. Students came from a diverse array of STEM disciplines, including computer science, data science, biotechnology, and mathematics. The most represented countries were Egypt, the US, Russia, India, and Kazakhstan.
Beyond the lab, participants were immersed in the UAE’s fast-evolving AI ecosystem, experiencing both the cultural landscape and the broader research infrastructure that positions Abu Dhabi as a rising global hub for AI.
UGRIP forms a key pillar of MBZUAI’s strategy to attract elite global AI talent while fostering innovation at the undergraduate level. The 2025 programme’s near doubling in applications reflects both the global demand for exposure to AI research and the rising stature of MBZUAI in the academic and scientific community.
Applications for UGRIP 2026 will open in January next year. The programme is open to undergraduate students in STEM fields with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or above, in their final or second-to-last year of study.
–Input WAM
