Mark Stevens, a venture capitalist and early Nvidia investor, and his wife, Mary, are donating a staggering $200 million to the University of Southern California to accelerate A.I. research and education across the institution. The gift will help the 145-year-old university position itself as a “trailblazer” in A.I., according to Stevens, a USC alumnus.
The funds will primarily support a university-wide recruitment effort to attract top A.I. talent, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary expertise. In recognition of the couple’s donation, USC plans to rename its advanced computing school, which opened in 2024, to the USC Mark and Mary Stevens School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence.
“We know the next great universities will be those that invest in computing. This is a key moment,” said Stevens in a statement.
Stevens, 66, has an estimated net worth of $11.5 billion, largely stemming from his stake in Nvidia. He first invested in the chipmaker in 1993 while serving as a managing partner at Sequoia Capital, which he joined in 1989 after stints at Intel and Hughes Aircraft. Now investing through his family office, S-Cubed Capital, Stevens owns a stake in the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and serves on Nvidia’s board. During his more than two decades with Sequoia, he also made early-stage investments in companies including Google, Yahoo and YouTube.
USC has long been a cornerstone of the tech industry’s talent pipeline—it ranks second among the most common alma maters in Silicon Valley. Stevens himself earned bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and economics, as well as a master’s degree in computer engineering, from the university. USC, which already offers more than 30 programs related to A.I. and computing, plans to launch a new Bachelor of Science in A.I. this fall.
The gift comes at a “critical inflection point for our society,” said USC President Beong-Soo Kim. “As a top destination for A.I. talent, USC can accelerate our mission of educating future leaders, addressing real-world problems and enhancing human values and agency.”
USC is far from the only university receiving major funding for A.I. initiatives. In April, the University of Texas at Austin received $750 million from billionaires Michael and Susan Dell to support an A.I.-native hospital. That donation was followed by a $100 million commitment to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s new College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence from alumni, business leaders and corporate partners. The University of Chicago also received $50 million last month from alumni Rika and Joe Mansueto to launch a program dedicated to recruiting A.I. scholars. In January, Bloomberg co-founder Tom Secunda committed $30 million to establishing the Center for AI Responsibility and Research at Binghamton University.
For Stevens, the donation is the latest in a long history of giving to USC. He and his wife previously contributed $22 million in 2004 to a USC innovation center and $50 million in 2015 to support neuroimaging and informatics work, along with additional multimillion-dollar gifts to orthobiologics and athletics programs.
Beyond USC, the couple’s philanthropy includes support for Santa Clara University, Stanford University, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Foundation. They also made a last-minute donation to save Oasis, a drag cabaret venue in San Francisco that had been facing closure. The couple have been signatories of the Giving Pledge since 2013, committing to give away the majority of their net worth.
