UNC Charlotte could soon become one of the few universities in the country to offer a degree in artificial intelligence. The school is seeking permission from the UNC Board of Governors and plans to start offering the undergraduate degree through its College of Computing and Informatics next year. For more on this and other business news of the week Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter joined WFAE’s Marshall Terry for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: I thought AI was going to replace humans in a lot of jobs, especially entry-level roles college grads are likely to apply for. That seems to be the concern anyway. So what's the thinking here in terms of what students, and businesses, might get out of this degree?
Tony Mecia: I think the thinking is that while AI is moving into a lot of different areas that may be taking over some tasks that those entry level college graduates would be doing, that it’s not fully sentient, at least not yet, and so you need people, actual humans who understand the technology, who understand how to use it because there's a lot of interest among businesses in using this technology to become more efficient.
UNC Charlotte says there are hundreds and hundreds of job postings in the Charlotte area from companies that are interested in people with backgrounds in artificial intelligence, but that this kind of program doesn't really exist anywhere else. They think it would be good to train those students up to prepare them for those jobs, and there's a lot of interest, incidentally, among students in using artificial intelligence as well. So, business interest and student interest and UNC Charlotte thinks that might make some sense.
Terry: How many other schools offer an AI degree?
Mecia: According to the material submitted by UNC Charlotte to the UNC System, they say that there are fewer than 20 colleges nationwide that offered full degree programs in artificial intelligence in 2023. The only one in the UNC System that's been approved to offer an AI degree is North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro. It's expected to start in a year or so.
UNC Charlotte's [degree], if it's approved by the Board of Governors, would start at the same time in the fall of 2026.
Terry: On to some medical business news now. Charlotte’s two largest hospitals, Atrium and Novant, are in a battle over operating rooms. What’s the beef there?
Mecia: This is one of those things that state regulators need to sign off on. They need to approve any addition of operating rooms. Novant and Atrium, which are extremely competitive with each other, both would like permission from the state to build those.
Novant is proposing to build two of them in Matthews and two at Presbyterian in the Elizabeth neighborhood, while Atrium is proposing to build five at its Carolinas Medical Center facility in a new tower that's supposed to open in a couple of years.
At a hearing before regulators this week, both of the big health systems told regulators that Mecklenburg County is short of operating rooms and that that's leading to delays in care, delays in scheduling, needed surgeries, and that they could really use some more. We'll see who gets approved.
Terry: Let’s end on some updates to real estate development stories we’ve talked about the past few weeks on this segment. They involve that long-vacant parking deck on 11th Street in uptown and the new office tower in South End 110 East, which has signed an anchor tenant. What’s the latest with those?
Mecia: Levine Properties, which owns that parking deck on 11th Street in uptown that's been vacant for a number of years, has started some demolition work around the parking structure. The original plan was to build apartments around it. That's not apparently going to happen, but they would like to open it as a standalone parking deck. So they've started some construction activity on that site. In South End at the tower 110 East, it has signed an anchor tenant. First Horizon Corp. financial services company. That company is going to be taking the top three floors and it will have its logo on the building.
Support for BizWorthy comes from the law office of Robertson & Associates.