University of South Carolina
SC · AI Readiness #11 of 227
AIREDEX™ Score: 9.2 /10
University of South Carolina requires every student in its AI Literacy Certificate to complete a dedicated ethics course, and its data science major graduated its first student in 2025.
USC houses The AI Institute of South Carolina, founded in 2019, which runs a dedicated Nvidia A100 GPU cluster and has attracted more than $33 million in funding under founding director Amit Sheth. OpenAI renewed and doubled its campus ChatGPT contract to $2.5 million in 2026, and Integer Technologies has embedded staff at the McNAIR Center to work with students on AI-driven defense software. USC has become one of the fastest-growing AI research hubs in the Southeast, and its momentum shows no signs of slowing.
Pillar grades
- Commitment: A
- Curriculum: A+
- Partnerships: B-
- Research: A+
A(I)ttitude™: leading edge
Selected Highlights
- Mark Uline appointed Associate Vice President and Vice Provost for AI Strategy, April 2026 — primary role with AI explicitly in title, reporting to Provost.
- Provost's AI Task Force (2024–25) with named chair, cross-campus membership, and published public report; GenAI Community of Practice also active.
- Multiple institutional-level AI documents: AI Roadmap for Research (Oct 2024), Guidebook for AI Integration (Provost's Office), CTE Guiding Principles (Nov 2025), Board of Trustees AI Pledge.
- Two named cross-disciplinary AI hubs — AIISC (est. 2019, named director Homayoun Valafar, 10+ college affiliations) and Garnet AI Foundry (launched 2025, 23,000+ active users).
- NIST AI Safety Institute Consortium membership with named faculty leads; Global AI Ethics Advisory Board (CIC, led by Shannon Bowen); AI Ethics in Medicine and Law Symposium (Jan 2026).