Mérouane Debbah
Also known as Merouane Debbah
As of October 2026, Mérouane Debbah is founding senior director of the Khalifa University Digital Future Institute and chief scientific AI advisor at the Technology Innovation Institute. After study at ENS Paris-Saclay, he held posts at Motorola Labs, Eurecom, CentraleSupélec and the Huawei France Research Center before joining the Technology Innovation Institute in 2021. His work led to NOOR, an Arabic language model released in 2022, and to Falcon LLM, released in 2023. He co-authored The Falcon Series of Open Language Models paper, and in 2024 he became chair of the IEEE GenAINet initiative on large generative AI models in telecom. He received the Mario Boella Award in 2005, the IEEE Glavieux Prize in 2011 and the Qualcomm Innovation Prize in 2012.
- Now at
- Technology Innovation Institute and Khalifa University of Science and Technology
- Works
- 1,871
- Citations
- 74,597
- h-index
- 120
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026.
Timeline
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1996–2002
Doctorate, then Motorola Labs
He enters ENS Paris-Saclay in 1996 and earns his PhD in 2002. From 1999 to 2002 he works at Motorola Labs in Saclay.
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2003–2007
Assistant professor at Eurecom
He is an assistant professor at Eurecom from 2003 to 2007, and in 2007 he becomes a full professor at CentraleSupélec.
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2005–2012
Early telecom research prizes
He receives the Mario Boella Award in 2005, the IEEE Glavieux Prize in 2011 and the Qualcomm Innovation Prize in 2012.
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2014
Vice-president at Huawei France
He becomes vice-president of the Huawei France Research Center in 2014.
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2021
Joining TII in Abu Dhabi
He joins the new Technology Innovation Institute in Abu Dhabi as chief researcher in 2021, and he founds the AI and Digital Science Research Center.
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2022–2023
NOOR and Falcon LLM
His work leads to NOOR, an Arabic language model released in 2022, and to Falcon LLM, released in 2023. He is also one of the authors of The Falcon Series of Open Language Models.
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2024
TelecomGPT and the GenAINet chair
In 2024 he becomes chair of the IEEE Large Generative AI Models in Telecom (GenAINet) Emerging Technology Initiative. He introduces the concept of TelecomGPT, the first comprehensive large language model tailored for the telecom domain.
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As of October 2026
Digital Future Institute leadership
He is appointed founding senior director of the Khalifa University Digital Future Institute in 2026, and he is also chief scientific AI advisor at the Technology Innovation Institute.
Sources and credits
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