North Carolina State University
NC · AI Readiness #56 of 227
AIREDEX™ Score: 8.2 /10
With $40 million in NSF grants, a formal AI advisory group, and free Gemini access for every student, NC State has a solid AI foundation, though senior leadership has not yet been established for State's AI programs.
Since 2024, an AI Advisory Group has been meeting to coordinate policy, and the Data Science and AI Academy runs programming reaching every college. Undergrads can pursue AI concentrations through computer science or electrical engineering. On the research side, NC State is leading a $20 million NSF self-driving lab project and a $20 million EngageAI Institute. There's no standalone AI major yet, and no one person has been named to run AI strategy campus-wide, leaving NC State keeping pace with, but not pulling ahead of, other major public research universities its size.
Pillar grades
- Commitment: B
- Curriculum: A-
- Partnerships: B+
- Research: A
A(I)ttitude™: progressive
Selected Highlights
- AI Advisory Group formally established April 2024 by Provost and VC for Research, with three named subgroups, named subgroup leaders (Bill Rand, Rachel Levy, Helen Chen), and documented public outputs including Generative AI Guiding Principles (March 2025) and AI training resources (March 2026).
- Multiple named cross-disciplinary AI hubs confirmed: Data Science and AI Academy (universitywide, all 12 colleges), NSF EngageAI Institute (James Lester, director), AI Hub for Science (Paul Liu, director; Emily Griffith, associate director, May 2026), and Applied AI in Engineering and Computer Science Initiative (COE).
- NEH-funded EASE/CASE AI Ethics Center ($500K grant, PI Veljko Dubljevic) with named co-directors across philosophy, communication, English, and computer science; planned graduate minor in AI ethics, annual conference, and postdoctoral mentoring program.
- Google Gemini confirmed as institution-wide licensed AI tool available at no cost to all students, faculty, and staff via NC State account; integrated into Google Workspace as of February 2026. Multiple additional qualifying tools confirmed (Claude, ChatGPT EDU, Zoom AI Assistant).
- AI integration confirmed across business (Poole College ITAO 558, Business AI Graduate Certificate), humanities/social sciences (STS 438, EASE Center with English and Communication faculty), and engineering (two-course Applied AI sequence launched Fall 2025/Spring 2026).