New UT Austin med center, anchored by MD Anderson, gets historic gift
Future of Health
A donation announced Tuesday, April 21, breaks a major record at the University of Texas at Austin. Michael and Susan Dell are now UT Austin's first supporters to give $1 billion. In response, the university will create the UT Dell Campus for Advanced Research and the UT Dell Medical Center to "advance human health," per a press release.
The release also records "significant support" for undergraduate scholarships, student housing, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center for supercomputing research.
Both the new research campus and the UT Dell Medical Center will integrate advanced computing into their research and practices. At the medical center, the university hopes that will lead to "earlier detection, more precise and personalized care, and better health outcomes." The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center will also be integrated into the new medical center.
That comes with a numeric goal measured in 10s: raise $10 billion and rank among the top 10 medical centers in the U.S., both in the next decade.
In the shorter term, the university will break ground on the medical center with architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) "later this year."
“UT Austin, where Dell Technologies was founded from a dorm room, has always been a place where bold ideas become real-world impact,” said Michael and Susan Dell in a joint statement.
They continued, “What makes this moment so meaningful is the opportunity to build something that brings every part of the journey together — from how students learn, to how discoveries are made, to how care reaches families. By bringing together medicine, science and computing in one campus designed for the AI era, UT can create more opportunity, deliver better outcomes, and build a stronger future for communities across Texas and beyond.”
This is the second major gift this year for the planned multibillion-dollar medical center. In January, Tench Coxe, a former venture capitalist who’s a major shareholder in chipmaking giant Nvidia, and Simone Coxe, co-founder and former CEO of the Blanc & Otus PR firm, contributed $100 million$100 million.
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This article originally appeared on CultureMap. A previous version stated the gift was $1 billion; the Dell's total gift to UT is $1 billion, with this donation at $750 million.
