A historic $200-million USC gift from Nvidia board member aims to transform AI education

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USC has received a $200-million gift from a major Silicon Valley venture capitalist and university trustee to expand artificial intelligence across campus through faculty recruitment, marking one of the largest donations in the university’s history, officials announced Tuesday.The gift — from Mark Stevens and his wife, Mary — will rename USC’s School of Advanced Computing to the USC Mark and Mary Stevens School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence.It will also fund a campuswide effort to make USC a national center of AI scholarship, including in film and the arts.

And it’s a major, early win for USC President Beong-Soo Kim, who was appointed in February.The Stevens gift is the latest in a surge of nine-figure AI-related donations to major universities.In April, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation gave $750 million to the University of Texas at Austin for a new medical center, including AI initiatives in health.

Last month, the University of Wisconsin-Madison also received $100 million in donations for a new College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence.In an interview, Kim said the donation comes during “an incredibly significant period of time” because AI is moving quickly from technical labs into “nearly every corner” of society.USC, he said, is positioned to compete by applying the technology across fields where the university already has strengths.“It’s that intersection between AI and these other fields that we think is a perfect fit for USC,” Kim said, adding that the goal is for the money to help the university use AI for “positive societal impact.”Kim said the gift will help USC recruit “world class AI talent,” but not only researchers focused on AI development.

The university is seeking scholars who can use AI to accelerate work in medicine, cybersecurity, national security, business, entertainment and other fields, he said.The ...