USC is collaborating with Capital One Financial Corp. to launch a joint research center called the USC-Capital One Center for Responsible AI and Decision Making in Finance, which will be supported by a $3 million gift from Capital One. It will be housed under the School of Advanced Computing, a division of the Viterbi School of Engineering that will open this fall and be USC’s first new school in more than a decade.

Capital One’s $3 million contribution will be disbursed over the course of five years. This will be bolstered by an additional $2 million in funding from USC Viterbi, which will also be disbursed over five years. 

The USC-Capital One Center is the most recent in a series of AI investments that USC has announced in the last year, including a new Center for Generative AI in Society. Petros Ioannou, a university professor and the director of the financial engineering master’s program, will serve as director of the USC-Capital One Center. 

The USC-Capital One Center will support research projects, invite USC faculty members to submit annual proposals for faculty-led research efforts and host workshops and an annual joint research symposium to share outcomes and insights. The center will also offer a one-year fellowship program for doctoral students.

Gaurav Sukhatme, director of the SAC and the executive vice dean of USC Viterbi, said in a statement that the center will serve as the “inaugural beacon” of the SAC and facilitate research on algorithmic, data and software innovations for AI and how they can be applied to finance. The USC-Capital One Center will open in the fall and will not have a physical location.

“This new center is emblematic of the fast-moving and far-reaching impact of computing today,” Sukhatme said. “Responsible, human-centered decision making – a cornerstone of (the SAC) – is at its very heart.”

As for Capital One’s interests, the financial services company is looking to leverage the SAC’s “immense resources” to address challenging issues in financial services and better serve its customers. Ioannou said that Capital One Fellows will receive funding for research projects and may receive job offers at Capital One.

The SAC, the USC-Capital One Center and the Center for Generative AI in Society are backed by a new, multiyear fundraising initiative called the Frontiers of Computing. 

This initiative announced an initial $260 million investment from the Lord Foundation of California last May, and it’s aiming to raise an additional $1 billion over the next 10 years.