Brady PieperThe California State University (CSU) is looking to become a national leader in publicly available artificial intelligence (AI), announcing the largest and first-ever public-private partnership (P3) between the university and some of the world’s leading tech companies.
CSU, the nation’s largest university system, is harnessing AI and its proximity to major tech hubs to transform education. In the coming weeks, advanced AI tools like ChatGPT will be available to students, staff, and faculty across CSU’s 23 campuses to enhance AI readiness and workforce development.
“The latest AI technologies can be used in many contexts, from academia to the workforce and we are excited to work with industry leaders to help the CSU build on our success in an AI-driven economy,” CSU Chief Information Officer Ed Clark said. “At the CSU, we have two imperatives: to equip our students with the skills to leverage these powerful tools, and to transform our own institutional practices through AI to better serve the largest public university system in the nation.”
The AI and education initiative will utilize partnerships with Adobe, Alphabet (Google), AWS, IBM, Instructure, Intel, LinkedIn, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OpenAI and the state to create a powerful AI-empowered higher education system at the university.
This P3 network of researchers, tech companies and educators will ensure that the public directly benefits from the innovations AI can offer, including tools for more than 520,000 CSU students, faculty and staff.
CSU’s AI initiative will be guided by three key strategies that offer equitable AI tools, expand educational advancements through AI resources and enhance workforce training opportunities for students. These include:
- AI Commons Hub: Students, faculty and staff may freely access the AI Commons Hub to connect to AI tools, training programs, certifications and resources, ensuring an inclusive approach to skill-building in CSU universities.
- AI Educational Innovations: Educators throughout CSU will utilize AI tools to transform and modernize teaching methods. The inclusion of AI in teaching processes is also anticipated to foster additional groundbreaking research and address concerns over AI’s adoption in academic environments.
- AI Workforce Training: CSU will provide new opportunities for students to work in AI technology-enabled companies and organizations. By expanding apprenticeship programs and gaining hands-on experience with developers, the system intends to create a talent pipeline of AI-skilled graduates who can power the future of California’s economy.
The P3 and its following efforts will be guided by a collaboration between CSU, the Governor’s Office and nearly a dozen of the world’s leading tech giants – the AI Workforce Acceleration Board.
Through this advisory board, these public and private industry stakeholders will work as a collective to advocate for AI skills and preparedness, challenge existing AI tools and foster further advancements in AI resources.
The university will host public events for students, faculty and staff to voice their opinion on AI and how the AI-empowered P3 can address key problems in society, such as climate change and housing affordability.
As some AI tools are currently not designed for educational spaces, CSU and P3 partner OpenAI will provide ChatGPT Edu to reinforce students’ educational arsenals, which expands ChatGPT’s offerings to include advanced tools, security and controls for system universities. This new AI resource seeks to accelerate students, faculty and staffs’ learning, workflow efficiency and cross-departmental collaboration.
Beyond digital AI initiatives, the P3 agreement will also result in the expansion of several workforce development and apprenticeship opportunities with partner organizations, especially as the need for AI-educated graduates grows higher.
The university system’s development of this collaborative P3 will be a vital tool used to better prepare students for life outside college and entering the California’s workforce. Going forward, the CSU will look to expand its P3s focusing on AI adoption in education as the initiative continues beyond the initial stages.
“We are proud to announce this innovative, highly collaborative (P3) initiative that will position the CSU as a global leader among higher education systems in the impactful, responsible and equitable adoption of AI,” CSU Chancellor Mildred García said. “The comprehensive strategy will elevate our students’ educational experience across all fields of study, empower our faculty’s teaching and research and help provide the highly educated workforce that will drive California’s future AI-driven economy.”
Photo courtesy Justefrain, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
