ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The University of Michigan announced that the Ross School of Business will offer a new artificial intelligence concentration for full-time Master of Business Administration students.
“Current and future Michigan State Ross full-time MBA students who pursue the new AI concentration will gain a comprehensive AI skill set and become valuable decision makers,” according to a Friday, Oct. 31 announcement.
This intensive course is divided into three categories: AI Fundamentals, AI and Business Models, and AI and Society.
This concentration allows students to take classes in a variety of academic fields and at other universities, such as the School of Information Science and the School of Engineering.
“Many courses at Michigan State’s Ross have incorporated AI in recent years,” S. Sriram, associate dean of graduate programs and professor of marketing at the Ross School of Business, said in the announcement. “Companies that hire graduates predict that leveraging AI tools will become as important as strategic thinking for business leaders.”
Graham Hardig, a third-year student at the UM School of Law and founder of the UM Artificial Intelligence Law and Policy Society, said this new concentration will equip business students with the knowledge and tools they need to succeed in the future.
“AI is potentially the most transformative technology of this century, so it makes sense to make it a more central focus in education,” said Hardig, 28, of Annapolis, Maryland. “Embracing transformative technology wherever possible is essential to preparing students to be effective leaders of the future in both business and civil society.”
He said it was important to spend more time and resources “harnessing” the benefits of AI.
Usman Ghani, an undergraduate student in the School of Information Studies and the Ross School of Business and co-director of the Michigan Student Artificial Intelligence Lab, said that although there has been a “stigma” against using AI in the classroom in recent years, he believes it is important to embrace the technology “because it is here to stay.”
“I think it’s really helpful because you can learn how to use it properly and use it well in the workplace and apply it to your workflow to make your job more efficient,” said Ghani, 20, of Grand Rapids. “This is a very exciting time to be more efficient than ever before.”
The new concentration comes as the university explores a plan to partner with Los Alamos National Laboratory to build what it calls a $1.2 billion High Performance Computing Facility Campus for federal and university research in artificial intelligence, national security and other sciences.
The university is eyeing two potential sites in the Ypsilanti area. One is off Textile Road east of Bridge Road, and the other is the site of a former General Motors facility west of Willow Run Airport.
Opponents, who call it a data center, are concerned about the potential impact on water and electricity, and are concerned about the impact on the environment and local communities.
read more: Masked Data Center Protesters Scatter Computer Parts in Ypsilanti Power Company Yard
UM Ross School of Business joins a number of business schools across the country that have added an AI concentration to their business education programs this year.
In July, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business announced the addition of a new emphasis in applied artificial intelligence to its Master of Business Administration program.
The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania announced in April that students will be able to pursue an undergraduate concentration in artificial intelligence for business or a master’s degree in business administration starting this fall.
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