On May 5, 2026, the University of Southern California (USC) announced a transformational initiative that will leverage AI to accelerate innovation, breakthroughs and discovery across USC, including in the health sciences, security, business and the arts.

Launched with a $200 million gift from legendary venture capitalist, NVIDIA board member and USC Trustee Mark Stevens and his wife, Mary, this new university-wide effort will recruit world-class AI researchers seeking to expand the frontiers of knowledge, develop new therapeutics, enhance our security, transform the world of business and enhance human creativity.

In recognition of their generosity and vision, the USC School of Advanced Computing, which sits within the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, will be renamed the USC Mark and Mary Stevens School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence.

USC already ranks in the top five in federal research support in areas related to computer science and offers more than 30 AI- and computing-related majors, minors and graduate degree programs that enroll thousands of students, with a new Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence being introduced this fall. After graduation, Trojan alumni are leading the AI era: USC is the nation’s top producer of computer and information sciences graduates and the second-most common alma mater in Silicon Valley.

One of those Trojans is Mark Stevens, a tech venture capitalist legendary for investing early in the people, ideas and businesses that go on to transform the world. As a partner at Sequoia Capital, he was part of the team that made early-stage investments in Google, Yahoo, YouTube and NVIDIA, which landed him on Forbes’ Midas List.