---
title: "Abdullah Alghamdi appointed to lead SDAIA by royal order"
url: "https://cicadaconsultancy.online/en/news/alghamdi-leads-sdaia"
language: "en"
event_date: "2019-08"
published: "2026-10-03"
last_verified: "2026-10-03"
category: "Talent"
publisher: "Cicada (cicadaconsultancy.online)"
license: "CC BY 4.0"
---

# Abdullah Alghamdi appointed to lead SDAIA by royal order

- Event date: August 2019 (2019-08)
- Topic: Talent
- In this story: SDAIA, Abdullah Alghamdi, ICAIRE
- URL: https://cicadaconsultancy.online/en/news/alghamdi-leads-sdaia

Dr. Abdullah bin Sharaf Alghamdi was appointed by royal order in 2019, with the rank of minister, as President of the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA). A software-engineering professor with a 1997 doctorate from the University of Sheffield, he previously directed the National Information Center and led the team that drafted the authority's founding proposal. He has led SDAIA since its creation and chairs the board of the International Center for AI Research and Ethics (ICAIRE).

## Sources

1. [Abdullah Sharaf al-Ghamdi](https://saudipedia.com/en/abdullah-sharaf-al-ghamdi) — Saudipedia
2. [The Middle East's Top Tech Leaders 2026: Abdullah bin Sharaf Alghamdi](https://www.forbesmiddleeast.com/lists/the-middle-easts-top-tech-leaders-2026/abdullah-bin-sharaf-alghamdi/) — Forbes Middle East

Archive report. Written in 2026 from contemporary sources and dated to the day the event happened.

---

Cicada · The signal in Saudi AI.
License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) · Full archive for language models: https://cicadaconsultancy.online/llms-full.txt