University of Pennsylvania
PA · AI Readiness #11 of 227
AIREDEX™ Score: 9.2 /10
Penn's BSE in AI — the first in the Ivy League — requires a standalone ethics course, deploys a university-built student chatbot, and pairs NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD compute with two named AI accountability institutes.
Penn holds the first undergraduate AI degree in the Ivy League — a BSE in Artificial Intelligence that includes a required "Technology Law and Ethics" course and was designed from day one around responsible AI principles. Behind it: two named accountability institutes (the ASSET Center and the Wharton Accountable AI Lab), a custom-built student chatbot ("Jean") trained on private course materials, NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD compute available across all Penn schools and centers, and a Penn AI Fellows Program now in its Spring 2026 cohort. Strong federal partnerships — including a flagship NSF GRASP robotics grant with Penn as lead institution — round out a profile that leads the Ivy League on nearly every undergraduate AI metric.
Pillar grades
- Commitment: A
- Curriculum: A+
- Partnerships: C+
- Research: A+
A(I)ttitude™: leading edge
Selected Highlights
- School-level named AI executives confirmed at PSOM (Marylyn Ritchie, Vice Dean of AI and Computing) and Penn Medicine (Mitchell Schnall, SVP Data and Technology Solutions); Senior Vice Provost Dawn Bonnell serves as administrative lead for Penn AI Council — partial credit awarded at 3 pts.
- Penn AI Council named, cross-disciplinary (6 schools represented), co-chaired by Bhuvnesh Jain, with public web presence and documented outputs including faculty advisory committee and programming.
- Two named institutional documents: ISC Generative AI Guidance (2023) and In Principle and Practice strategic framework designating Data and AI as a priority challenge.
- Multiple distinct dollar figures documented: $137.5M Amy Gutmann Hall, $200M Penn Engineering Futures Fund — combined confirmed institution-specific total exceeds $50M.
- Penn AI Initiative (flagship, launched 2025), Amy Gutmann Hall (physical hub), PARCC, DDDI, WAIAI — all cross-disciplinary with named directors and active programming.