ASPIRE-AI will accelerate sustainable external partnerships in artificial intelligence (AI) and applying AI to drive innovation, research, and entrepreneurship. The project aims to enhance regional economic growth and workforce development by establishing institutional structures for partnership development, strengthening faculty engagement, and advance workforce preparedness. Each collaborating institution brings unique strengths, leveraging regional and disciplinary expertise to address barriers such as limited infrastructure and fragmented institutional cultures. By promoting interdisciplinary research collaborations and building sustainable industry and community partnerships, ASPIRE-AI generates actionable knowledge and tools to advance applied AI research and innovation. The cohort collaboration will create a model for non-R1 institutions to leverage external partnerships to enhance regional capacity in responding to emerging technologies and the impact it will have on workforce development. ASPIRE-AI will establish centralized partnership hubs, implement comprehensive faculty development programs, and facilitate interdisciplinary research initiatives that generate actionable knowledge and tools to advance applied AI research and innovation. These efforts are supported by shared resources and a focus on scaling successes across cohort institutions, which naturally form a community of practice to augment mutual support for capacity building. The project will produce i