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The Tech Billionaires Funding A.I.’s Next Chapter on Campus

Nine major gifts are helping universities recruit researchers, build computing power and compete with private A.I. labs.

Universities are racing to secure the resources needed for serious A.I. research, but competing with deep-pocketed private labs requires more than academic talent. Increasingly, wealthy donors and tech leaders are stepping in to help. Their gifts are funding new colleges and research centers, opening access to A.I. infrastructure and supporting new academic programs. Philanthropists are even helping build the country’s first A.I.-native hospital, as universities play a larger role in shaping how the technology is developed and applied.

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Here is a look at nine major gifts driving academia’s next era.

Michael and Susan Dell: University of Texas at Austin, $750 million

Michael Dell arrived at the University of Texas at Austin in the early 1980s, planning to study medicine. Instead, he began selling personal computers from his dorm room and dropped out to build Dell Technologies. Four decades later, he and his wife, Susan, are helping UT Austin build a medical center designed explicitly for the A.I. age.

Their $750 million commitment, unveiled in April, will establish the UT Dell Campus for Advanced Research and its centerpiece, the UT Dell Medical Center, which the university calls the country’s first “A.I.-native” hospital.

With a new facility, “you can design it from the start with data and computing and A.I. built in,” Dell told CNBC. The commitment also supports scholarships, student housing and the university’s supercomputing center, while pushing the couple’s lifetime contributions to UT Austin past $1 billion. Construction could begin as early as September, with the medical center scheduled to open in 2030.

Mark and Mary Stevens: University of Southern California, $200 million

Venture capitalist Mark Stevens earned three degrees from the University of Southern California before joining Sequoia Capital, where he was part of the team behind........

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