Vol. 6 [UT Stories] The Dells Make Another $750M Gift to UT

The milestone:

• Michael and Susan Dell have become UT Austin's first-ever billion-dollar donors, with a new $750 million commitment announced this week. (Fortune)
• The gift ranks among the largest philanthropic contributions ever made to a U.S. university. (UT News)

What's being built:

• Two new flagship initiatives will be established: the UT Dell Campus for Advanced Research and the UT Dell Medical Center. (UT News)
• The medical center is slated to open in 2030 on a 300-plus-acre campus, featuring a 300–500 bed hospital, outpatient facilities, a full-service emergency department, and a research campus centered on AI and advanced computing. (Fortune)
• The facility is being designed from the ground up as an AI-native, patient-centered system — integrating prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and discovery rather than retrofitting existing infrastructure. (UT News)
• Architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is leading the design; groundbreaking is expected later this year. (UT News)

MD Anderson partnership:

• UT MD Anderson Cancer Center will be integrated into the UT Dell Medical Center, bringing cancer care into a unified, coordinated system where specialists, advanced therapies, and clinical research are connected from the outset. (UT News)

Additional areas supported by the gift:

• Undergraduate scholarships, student housing, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center — currently developing the nation's largest academic supercomputer using Dell's AI infrastructure. (UT News, Fortune)

The bigger goal:

• The commitment sets in motion a university-wide target to raise $10 billion over the next 10 years and place UT's medical center among the top 10 nationally within the same timeframe. (UT News)

Dell's personal connection to UT:

• Dell enrolled at UT Austin as a premed student, founded Dell Technologies from his dorm room at age 19 with $1,000, and eventually left before his sophomore year. (Fortune)
• That original dorm room will be renamed "Dell House" in his honor. (Fortune)
• "I think about this as the next step in a timeline that actually goes back to my parents sending me off to UT to become a doctor," Dell told CNBC. (Fortune)

History of giving:

• The Dells contributed $25 million in 2005 toward Dell Children's Medical Center, which opened in 2007 as the region's first freestanding pediatric hospital, and $50 million in 2013 to establish Dell Medical School. (Fortune)

Broader philanthropic context:

• The UT gift follows a separate $6.25 billion pledge by the Dells to fund "Trump Accounts" — investment vehicles for children born between 2025 and 2028 under President Trump's tax legislation, extended by the Dells to cover the roughly 25 million children born before January 1, 2025, who do not qualify for the federal contribution. (Fortune)
• Other recent large-scale giving in higher education includes Phil Knight's $2 billion to Oregon Health & Science University in 2025, Michael Bloomberg's $1 billion to Johns Hopkins for medical school tuition in 2024, Stephen Schwarzman's $350 million to MIT for its College of Computing, and MacKenzie Scott's $1 billion-plus to historically Black colleges and universities. (Fortune)

(Sources: UT News ; Fortune )