AIKEN — USC Aiken’s inaugural CSRA Cyber & Innovation Exchange brought together leaders in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, defense, energy and workforce development Feb. 5 for dialog about regional and national cybersecurity threats, critical infrastructure protection, AI integration, defense and energy sector resilience and workforce development.
Held to promote regional networking between academia, industry, military and education, the multi-day summit was hosted by USCA in collaboration with the South Carolina National Guard, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, and the Savannah River National Laboratory.
Panelists included industry leaders and representatives from academia, national laboratories, military and defense sectors, and K–12 education partners.
“Cyber security is no longer a niche field. AI is no longer a far-removed concept. These forces are shaping everything: our economy, our national defense, our critical infrastructure, our communities, and, of course, the workforce of tomorrow,” said USCA Chancellor Daniel Heimmermann in his welcoming remarks.
“The conversations we begin here today matter, not just for USC Aiken, but for South Carolina, for the nation and the world,” he said.
“At USC Aiken, we are committed to preparing not just for jobs, but for impactful careers, ones that strengthen our defenses and ones that protect our systems and harness innovation responsibly, ensuring that our future is secure, resilient and bold,” Heimmermann said.
“I invite every one of you to engage deeply, to build partnerships, spark ideas and imagine what is possible when leaders like those in this room come together, to collaborate, to innovate, to lead with purpose,” he said.
“The challenges ahead that we face are considerable, but so are the opportunities, and the future will belong to those regions and institutions that partner to rise and meet that moment,” Heimmermann said.
Johney Green, director of Savannah River National Laboratory, said “It’s great to see so many leaders from government, industry and academia and the defense community all here together today for this important initiative.”
“Artificial intelligence is really changing the way that we perform science and engineering, and just transforming the landscape. That’s an important priority for the Department of Energy,” he said.
“It’s a great opportunity to really have a tremendous impact on several areas of energy and security, and one of the areas that they want to tackle is the grid. We need a modern and resilient electric grid that’s capable of withstanding threats that are natural or man-made,” Green said.
“We also need a workforce that understands how to use these tools, a workforce that knows how to use artificial intelligence to help us address these important challenges. And we have to really think about these things in more of an integrated manner, the role of science and innovation to bring together research, technology and defense to meet our national needs,” he said.
“We’ve got to really integrate what we’re doing in energy, national security, workforce and innovation to address these challenges. All these things play out in real time. They’re deeply interconnected and interwoven,” Green said.
“Here in the CSRA and across South Carolina, we have something really special, a concentration of mission, talent and institutions that are making a tremendous difference already,” he said.
Brigadier General Mark Miles, deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia, told attendees that “you don’t excel in this area of cyber security without constantly innovating, without constantly looking at what what’s coming next, without constantly growing.”
Soldiers at the Cyber Center “are involved day-to-day in the cyber fight… against elements in this world that are opposed to the freedoms, to the prosperity, that our country represents,” Gen. Miles said.
Every day they “are conducting action and counter-action in cyberspace, in areas throughout this world but projected from Fort Gordon,” he said.
S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson spoke about how he and the nation’s attorneys general collaborated to close loop holes that allowed AI generation of child sexual abuse material.
“We did that at the federal level. We did that at the state level. We were successful in adapting our laws to catch up to the speed of the technology that the bad guys are using,” Wilson said.
He called AI “a force multiplier.”
“It’s going to increase productivity, but it’s going to have a kind of a sense of creative destruction,” he said. “It’s going to happen in academia, it’s going to happen in the military, it’s going to happen in manufacturing. It’s going to happen across the spectrum of everything that we deal with.”
Criminals and terrorists “and those who pose an existential threat to us will use every element and every capability at their disposal, which is why what we are doing here today… is so important, and that is why we have to build this infrastructure. We have to support this infrastructure here in South Carolina,” Wilson said.
“We have to work together. We have to recognize that the world is going to look very different, not in 30 years or 100 years, but in three years. That is how fast we’re moving,” he said.
The event is the culmination of USCA’s “AI & Cyber Innovation Week,” five days of cross-campus experiences bringing together students, educators, employers and innovators dedicated to shaping the future of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and digital defense education.
“We are so thrilled to be the presenting sponsor of this event,” said Laura Warren, community development regional manager for Meta. “This is a huge moment for our community, our region, and I think we’ve been building the building blocks to get us here for a long time.”
