USC announced a universitywide AI initiative backed by a $200 million gift from Mark Stevens and his wife Mary, a venture capitalist and Nvidia board member. USC will recruit “world-class AI researchers” and expand work in health sciences, security, business, and the arts. USC said the School of Advanced Computing within the Viterbi School of Engineering will be renamed the USC Mark and Mary Stevens School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence. The university also indicated plans for an artificial intelligence bachelor’s program beginning this fall. The initiative reflects a broader higher education competition for AI talent and compute-centered research capabilities, with private philanthropy aimed at accelerating faculty hiring and translational research. For university leaders and governing boards, the development signals how major donations are increasingly tied to AI capacity building—curriculum expansion, research staffing, and interdisciplinary program funding—rather than traditional targeted scholarships alone.