Mayor Matt Mahan on How AI Is Changing City Life in San Jose - Ep. 280

Hello, and welcome to the NVIDIA AI podcast. I'm your host, Noah Kravitz. For generations now, people have associated the West Coast Of The United States with the technology industry. From Silicon Valley birthing semiconductors and so much computing technology to Seattle and San Francisco during the dot com boom and beyond, many people around the globe hear technology and think of Northern California, the Western United States, these places. Well, these days, it's the city of San Jose, California that's grabbing headlines for its innovative approach to using AI in civic life. Our guests today, and we have two of them, are gonna dive into what it means to be an AI city today in 2025, both at a high level and in terms of some on the ground engagement and projects and initiatives going on right now in San Jose. So let's get to it. Matt Mahan is the sixty sixth mayor of San Jose. He's been serving since 2023. He's a former teacher. Matt transitioned out of the classroom and into Silicon Valley entrepreneurship and then city leadership, and his current administration has positioned San Jose as a national leader in civic adoption of artificial intelligence. They've launched initiatives including an AI upskilling program for over 1,000 city employees and what I believe is the nation's first civic AI grant program. And joining Matt is Jumbi Edelborough. Jumbi oversees global business development for smart cities and spaces at NVIDIA, where he drives the adoption of AI solutions for spatial intelligence and urban applications. With a PhD and extensive background spanning chip design and leadership roles, Jhoomi brings deep technical expertise and passion to using AI to transform city operations and urban life. All of which is a longish way of saying we've got the two best people I can think of here today to talk about what AI means to cities, to the people who live in the cities, and to where our cities and our communities are headed in the future. So mayor Matt Mahan and Jumbi, thank you so much for joining the NVIDIA AI podcast, and welcome. Thank you, Mel. It's great to be here with you and Jumbi. Looking forward to our conversation. Thank you. Glad to be here. Absolutely. Mayor Mahan, I'll start with you. Can you talk a little bit about what inspired you, kind of your journey from the classroom to the tech world? And I'll throw in real quick that our stories are kinda parallel to there. I started off as a teacher as well, so a lot of respect for that. But your journey that, you know, led you to now leading San Jose, and how all of that kind of shapes your vision for the city at large, but also, you know, thinking about and starting to use AI in daily operations. Yeah. You know? No. It's it's definitely a nonlinear career path and not one that I mapped out with any intentionality. I've just always been …