Professor Fahmy’s research explores novel ways to integrate accelerated computation and communication to improve computing systems' efficiency, latency, and security.

Biography

Suhaib Fahmy is associate professor of Computer Science and the principal investigator of the KAUST Accelerated Connected Computing Laboratory (ACCL).

Professor Fahmy graduated from Imperial College London with an M.Eng. in Information Systems Engineering in 2003 and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2008. Following his Ph.D., he joined Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, as a postdoctoral research fellow and later worked as a visiting research engineer at Xilinx Research Labs Ireland, focusing on reconfigurable computing systems.

He was an assistant professor of Computer Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where his team led early efforts to virtualize FPGAs for cloud computing, as well as pioneering work on efficient mapping of circuits to FPGA primitives.

In 2015, he returned to the UK, joining the University of Warwick as associate professor, then Reader in Computer Engineering. While at Warwick, he led the Connected Systems Research Group and the Adaptive Reconfigurable Computing Lab and launched the joint Computer Systems Engineering degree program. He was also appointed a Turing Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence.

He has received numerous notable accolades, including the IEEE Conference on Field Programmable Technology (FPT) Best Paper Award in 2012, IBM Faculty Awards in 2013 and 2017, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collaborative Development Award in 2013, the International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic and Applications (FPL) Community Award in 2016, the ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems Best Paper Award in 2019, and the IEEE High Performance Extreme Computing Conference Best Paper Award in 2021.

In 2023, he was awarded the KAUST Distinguished Teaching Award for his exceptional contributions to the classroom instruction mission of the University.

Research Interests

Professor Fahmy and his team at the ACCL are currently investigating a variety of approaches to hardware acceleration and how connected computing can enable more efficient, performant and secure systems.

His group focuses on overcoming the inherent latency and inefficiency of existing computing abstractions. To achieve this goal, they develop connected accelerator architectures that consider connectivity from the outset alongside specialized accelerator architectures to support more challenging applications.

Professional Profile

Service Contributions

Service to the Discipline or Profession
  • Member, ACM Technical Committee on FPGAs and Reconfigurable Computing, Nov 1 2015

Awards and Distinctions

  • Best Paper Award , IEEE Conference on Field Programmable Technology (FPT), Dec 31 2012
  • The IBM Faculty Award , Dec 31 2013
  • The Community Award , The International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic and Applications, Dec 31 2016
  • Best Paper Award , The ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems , Dec 31 2019
  • Best Paper Award , IEEE High Performance Extreme Computing Conference , Dec 31 2021

Professional Memberships

  • Fellow, Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Apr 1 2024
  • Senior Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Feb 1 2013
  • Senior Member, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Jun 1 2013
  • Chartered Engineer, Engineering Council (UK), Sep 1 2017
  • Fellow, Higher Education Academy (UK), Mar 1 2017

Education

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, 2008
Master of Engineering (MEng)
Information Systems Engineering, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, 2003

Quote

Thinking about computing as a more tightly coupled integration of computation and communication opens up the possibility of larger scale systems that are more responsive, more efficient, and more adaptable to evolving demands. KAUST gives me the opportunity to pursue cutting edge research at this intersection.