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, a nonprofit organization focused on AI readiness, is visiting all 50 states through its , which brings together industry leaders, policymakers, researchers and community members.

Ole Miss will host the Mississippi convention on Nov. 16 in the Gertrude C. Ford Ole Miss Student Union. The conference opens at 9 a.m. and sessions run through 3 p.m. and the event is open to the public.

"This is not just for Ole Miss, but for people from all over the state," said Dominique Halaby, Ole Miss assistant vice chancellor for innovation and economic engagement. "We want to talk with Mississippians about Mississippi's place in the AI conversation."

Mississippi is already becoming a destination for cloud computing and machine learning companies. , , and have committed .

"What this influx of attention from these companies prompts is a conversation from an infrastructure perspective about how our state can benefit from AI," Halaby said. "Data centers are valuable to our national infrastructure, valuable to our industries. But it's not always necessarily clear what the benefit of the data center is to the community.

"What these conversations can do is help us plan how we can best leverage our resources to make sure that Mississippians are benefiting from these centers, not just hosting them."

The university has invited representatives from , the and , alongside industry leaders and governmental agencies such as , to lead discussions.

"The goal here is a general conversation among the people of Mississippi about what's happening in Mississippi," said Stuart Styron, SeedAI's director of strategic initiatives. "Everybody needs to be able to participate in the development and the deployment of AI.

"Everyone should have a say so in how it interacts with their community and their families and their lives."

Among the questions organizers hope to address at the conference:

• How are existing industries adopting AI technologies?
• How Is AI affecting education?
• How are small businesses using AI and responding to the challenges it poses?
• Is Mississippi attracting talent, retaining talent and developing new talent internally?

"We don't want to tell Mississippi what they should be doing," Styron said. "We want to lay the groundwork for what is happening in Mississippi and then talk about what needs to happen next to take advantage of the opportunities AI present."

Although data centers can generate tax revenue for host communities, they often require relatively few employees to operate, Halaby said. Bringing residents, policymakers, researchers and industry leaders together could help Mississippi identify other ways to benefit from its growing AI infrastructure.

"We want people to think beyond just the maintenance of a data center," he said. "Are there ways in which we can accelerate data transfer by being in close proximity to a data center?

"That could be a game changer, if our communities start coalescing around the conversation to say, 'We want faster access than anybody else if we're going to host one of these.' These are the kinds of ideas that we need to have, and by having AI Across America hosted here, we can start having those conversations."

Top: The university is hosting the Mississippi stop on the AI Across America tour, an effort by the nonprofit SeedAI to bring together industry leaders, policymakers, researchers and community members for discussions on how states and communities can prepare for and benefit from artificial intelligence. The public event is set for 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Nov. 16 in the Gertrude C. Ford Ole Miss Student Union. Graphic by Clara Turnage/University Marketing and Communications