Arlindo Oliveira was born in Angola and lived in Mozambique, Portugal, Switzerland, the United States (California, Massachusetts, and Maryland), Japan, and China (Macau). He graduated in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) and earned his PhD in the same field from the University of California, Berkeley, with a Fulbright scholarship. He has been a visiting professor at MIT and a researcher at INESC, CERN, the Electronics Research Laboratory at UC Berkeley, the Berkeley Cadence Laboratories, and the University of Tokyo.

He was a member of the Conselho Nacional de Ciência Tecnologia e Inovação and the Conselho Consultivo do Painel de Ciência e Tecnologia do Parlamento Europeu (STOA). He is a Distinguished Full Professor at IST, president of INESC, visiting professor at the Universidade de Ciência e Tecnologia de Macau, non-executive director at Caixa Geral de Depósitos, and a researcher at INESC-ID.

He has published five books, translated into various languages, and hundreds of scientific articles in international journals and conferences, focusing on algorithms, artificial intelligence, machine learning, bioinformatics, and computer architecture.

He has served as an executive in various companies and institutions, as well as the president of Instituto Superior Técnico, INESC-ID, and the Associação Portuguesa para a Inteligência Artificial. He is a member of the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, the Academia da Engenharia, IEEE, and ACM. He has received several awards and distinctions, including the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa/Santander Award for Excellence in Research, the GALP/Academia da Engenharia Career Award, and the ACEPI Career Award.