Saudi Aramco opened a research center in Cambridge (Boston), Massachusetts yesterday, the first of three new US research facilities the global energy giant will set up by the end of next year. The new center is adjacent to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and will support computational reservoir modeling, nanotechnology and advanced gas membrane system research. The 32,000sq ft office in Kendall Square will eventually employ about 50 scientists.
The company says the new US centers (also Houston and Detroit) will be part of a global network of RCs to leverage scientific expertise and strengthen collaboration in providing solutions to Saudi Aramco research and technology challenges. The centers closely align their goals with those of Saudi Aramco’s EXPEC Advanced Research Center and its Research and Development Center.
MIT partnership
On 18 June 2013, Saudi Aramco President and CEO Khalid A. Al-Falih and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Susan Hockfield signed a Memorandum of Understanding that sets up a framework to greatly expand the research and education partnership between MIT and Saudi Aramco. Saudi Aramco has agreed to become a Founding Member of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), raising its participation from its current Sustaining Membership. This will entail a substantial increase in the scope of research collaboration, encompassing renewable energy; energy efficiency; energy economics; CO2 management and conversion; desalination; advanced materials; and a range of hydrocarbon production areas such as computational reservoir modeling and simulation, geophysics and unconventional gas.
At that time, Al-Falih also announced Saudi Aramco’s plans to create the satellite R&D center in Cambridge, to enhance the research collaboration and facilitate the exchange of researchers.
Robert C. Armstrong, director of the MIT Energy Initiative, said Aramco’s presence in Massachusetts is a sign that the state’s energy technology industry one day could be as significant as its lucrative biotechnology sector.
Armstrong said the Aramco seems interested in what it can learn from research in other industries, such as nanotechnology and material sciences, that can then be applied to energy.
“Cambridge specifically gives them an intellectual and innovative hub, and a field of new ideas,” he said.
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