$200M Gift to USC Will Advance AI Research

Mark Stevens, a venture capitalist and a board member of NVIDIA, and his wife, Mary, donated $200 million to the University of Southern California for artificial intelligence research. The university’s computing school will be renamed the USC Mark and Mary Stevens School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence.

Prior to this gift, the couple donated a total of $92 million to the university, of which Mark Stevens is an alum. Several centers at USC are already named in their honor.

“As AI becomes ever more powerful, it creates enormous opportunities to improve lives and solve some of our greatest challenges, if used the right way,” USC president Beong-Soo Kim said in the announcement Tuesday. “Mark and Mary Stevens’ generosity will allow USC to leverage our existing interdisciplinary strengths and capitalize on these new opportunities at a critical inflection point for our society. As a top destination for AI talent, USC can accelerate our mission of educating future leaders, addressing real-world problems, and enhancing human values and agency.”

USC’s computing school was first launched in 2024. The university plans to introduce an artificial intelligence bachelor’s program this fall.