USC Names Its Computing and AI School After Mark and Mary Stevens

A naming ceremony at Olin Hall

The new name appeared on the wall of Olin Hall at Epstein Plaza on Tuesday, with streamers and a performance by the Trojan Marching Band. USC President Beong-Soo Kim, Mark and Mary Stevens and Gaurav Sukhatme counted down together before the unveiling.

Sukhatme is the interim dean of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the inaugural director of the USC Stevens School. "A name on a school or a building is also a promise," he said. Kim, USC's recently installed 13th president, called the gift one that "is going to be absolutely transformational for the entire world."

According to USC, the money will help the university recruit leading researchers and accelerate discoveries in health, medicine, business, security and the arts.

Why Mark Stevens is betting on AI

Mark Stevens graduated from USC (B.S./B.A. '81, M.S. '84) as the IBM personal computer was emerging. He is a USC trustee and a former partner at Sequoia Capital, where he made early-stage investments in Google, Yahoo, YouTube and NVIDIA.

Stevens said he has watched the internet, cloud computing and mobile technology reshape society, and expects AI to surpass them. "The impact of AI is going to blow all of those away," he said. Drawing on NVIDIA's culture of moving quickly, he challenged the university: "USC needs to move at the speed of light." He added that he hopes the gift will make USC a leader "not just in AI research, but in how AI is applied to many fields."

The gift builds on the couple's earlier philanthropy at USC, which includes support for innovation, neuroimaging, orthobiologics and athletics.

One school, 22 connections

Sukhatme said many computing schools stand alone, while the USC Stevens School is designed to connect with 22 other USC schools, from medicine and business to law, social work and the arts. Examples already in place include:

• The USC Institute on Ethics and Trust in Computing, which brings together philosophers, computer scientists, journalists, physicians and policymakers.
• The USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society, which links engineering and social work to apply AI to problems affecting vulnerable communities.
• USC Games, which combines game design, computer science, art, animation and production.
• The Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence for Business, offered jointly by USC Marshall School of Business and USC Viterbi.

Across USC, more than 30 computing- and AI-related programs enroll thousands of students. A new Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence welcomed its first class this fall.

A young school with a long history

The school launched in 2024. Sukhatme tied it to a longer record: USC established the Information Sciences Institute in 1972 and its Department of Computer Science in 1976. In 1983, USC researchers Paul Mockapetris and Jon Postel pioneered the Domain Name System. Professor Leonard Adleman later launched the field of DNA computing, and in 2011 USC became the first academic institution to operate a commercial quantum computing system.

Kim stressed that speed must not come at the expense of people. "It's about making sure our progress is responsible, ethical and human-centered," he said. Sukhatme described the gift as "a bet on everything we have yet to see."

For students, the naming comes with a stated aim of cross-disciplinary reach: the school is meant to link computing and AI work with fields across the university, while the gift is intended to strengthen research recruitment.