---
title: "Saudi Arabia creates national science center that became KACST"
url: "https://cicadaconsultancy.online/en/news/kacst-established-1977"
language: "en"
event_date: "1977-11-29"
published: "2026-10-03"
last_verified: "2026-10-03"
category: "AI"
publisher: "Cicada (cicadaconsultancy.online)"
license: "CC BY 4.0"
---

# Saudi Arabia creates national science center that became KACST

- Event date: 29 November 1977 (1977-11-29)
- Topic: AI
- In this story: KACST
- URL: https://cicadaconsultancy.online/en/news/kacst-established-1977

On 29 November 1977 a royal directive created the National Center for Science and Technology, which a royal decree converted on 31 December 1985 into the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST). KACST became the Kingdom's main applied-research organization, responsible for technology advice, turning research outputs into industrial products and supporting universities and research centers. It is the institutional root of the Kingdom's later computing and AI work.

## Sources

1. [King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST)](https://saudipedia.com/en/king-abdulaziz-city-for-science-and-technology-kacst) — Saudipedia
2. [King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Abdulaziz_City_for_Science_and_Technology) — Wikipedia

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