Sir Bashir M. Al-Hashimi CBE FRS FREng is a distinguished Professor of Engineering, academic leader and entrepreneur. He is Senior Vice President (Research & Special Initiatives) at King’s College London.

Sir Bashir has held the title of Arm Professor of Computer Engineering since 2007. His pioneering research in hardware-software co-design and energy-efficient computing has underpinned transformative impact on modern digital technologies, with innovations embedded in billions of smartphones worldwide. He is also currently co-Director of the King's Institute for Artificial Intelligence. He served previously as Executive Dean of the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences at King’s after undertaking a similar Executive Dean role at University of Southampton.

An elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Academia Europea, Sir Bashir is among the most highly cited researchers in his field, with nearly 400 publications, eight books and 52 successfully supervised PhD students. His many honours include the IET Faraday Medal (2020) and the IEEE–HKN Asad M. Madni Outstanding Technical Achievement and Excellence Award (2025). He was knighted by HM King Charles III in 2025 for exceptional leadership in engineering and education and was previously appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2018 by HM the late Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to research and innovation.

Beyond academia, Sir Bashir co-founded the Arm-Southampton Research Centre, one of the UK’s most successful university-industry partnerships. He has also played a leading role in shaping national engineering policy, including chairing the Engineers 2030 Working Group (a Royal Academy of Engineering-led national programme on future engineering and technical skills) and currently serves as chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s International Committee. Bashir is also a Director of the ERA Foundation Board.

Research interests

Bashir is an interdisciplinary researcher, he has led successfully a number of large-scale interdisciplinary research programmes funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and industry.

These include the PRiME project which addressed the challenge of power consumption and reliability of future high-performance embedded systems utilising many-core processors, and Holistic, an EPSRC funded consortium that helped develop ultra energy-efficient electronic systems for emerging applications including mobile digital health, and autonomous wireless monitoring in environmental and industrial settings.

He served on the Research Excellence Framework 2014 Electrical, Electronics and Materials Panel and served again in 2021 as a member of the Engineering Panel. Both exercises evaluate the quality and impact of UK universities research.