Navigating the Future of Higher Education IT with AI

Vince Kellen, Chief Information Officer, University of California, San Diego

Vince Kellen, an award-winning higher education CIO and executive, is widely recognized for driving strategic, finance-savvy leadership and innovation. A thought leader in AI, analytics, cloud, cybersecurity, and large-scale transformation, he has led institutions through major change. Known for his clarity and vision, Kellen is a key voice shaping technology and higher education.

In an exclusive interview with Education Technology Insights, Kellen shared his key observation on the future of education under artificial intelligence.

A Day as CIO at UC San Diego

My days as CIO at UC San Diego are anything but routine. Each morning is a blend of strategic planning, operational oversight, and stakeholder engagement that spans campus committees and system-wide governance. At its essence, my position centers on two critical mandates: ensuring our IT infrastructure continuously evolves while maintaining strategic alignment, and advancing forward-thinking governance and compliance frameworks.

Within the higher education IT infrastructure, cybersecurity is both a safeguard and an enabler. In this regard my constant vigilance protects highly sensitive research data without creating barriers that impede scientific discovery. The balance between security and accessibility is nonnegotiable; we cannot allow protection measures to constrain the innovation our faculty drives.

Another urgent frontier is the rise of AI and AI-powered attacks. Nation-state actors are deploying sophisticated, well-funded AI agents, creating risks we have not faced before. As we embrace the AI future, we must simultaneously prepare for an entirely new class of cybersecurity threats. And that is also a part of my job as the CIO.

When Trends Become Imperatives

What were once trends—cloud, SaaS, big data, analytics, and data warehousing—are now foundational. The focus today is AI. Its potential to streamline operations and elevate service directly advances our core mission of research and teaching.

“The future for the next two years is all about AI in every dimension of the puzzle”

What excites me most in the world of AI is agentic AI, specialized agents for targeted use cases. We are building our own using Python, LangChain, and retrieval-augmented generation. Over time, these approaches will dominate how business applications are conceived, built, and deployed. AI is increasingly transforming IT operations, enabling us to predict and prevent incidents rather than just respond to them. This marks a paradigm shift toward proactive infrastructure management.

The Future of IT in Higher Education

I am particularly excited about TritonGPT, our on premise AI platform built on Dell AI Factory servers at our supercomputer center. We launched just three months after OpenAI’s public debut in late 2022, reflecting our commitment to rapid innovation. The platform uses Meta’s Llama models at its core, with access to OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic models. Paired with ONYX as the enterprise search front end, it runs in a secure, air gapped environment with custom guardrails and expert evaluation. The result: 82,000 students, faculty, and staff are now using the platform at roughly one tenth the cost of commercial alternatives, powering business apps, assistants, and inventive classroom integrations.

Guidance for Aspirants and Leaders

For aspiring IT leaders in higher education, I emphasize three key lessons. One of them is, great leaders recognize when they are part of the problem and adjust through reflection, coaching, and mentorship. Another will be following Bernard Bass’s transformational leadership framework which offers practical and daily guidance. The last one will be CIOs must also act as part CTO by staying with current technology, thinking like investors, and ensuring resources are allocated strategically for maximum impact.

IT leadership in higher education is constantly evolving. At UC San Diego, our focus on AI, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies highlights both challenges and opportunities. My goal is to combine strategy, technical fluency, and self-aware leadership to make IT a forward-driving partner in research and education.

AI

IT Infrastructure

Big Data

SaaS