Michael and Susan Dell pledge $750 million for an 'AI-native' Texas medical center

On 21 April 2026 Michael and Susan Dell announced new commitments of about $750 million to the University of Texas at Austin, one of the largest gifts ever made to a US public university. The money will create the UT Dell Campus for Advanced Research, a site of more than 300 acres in northwest Austin, and at its heart the UT Dell Medical Center, a hospital that university leaders describe as the country's first built to be 'AI-native' from the ground up.

The hospital is planned with roughly 300 to 500 beds on a 27-acre site, with construction beginning in 2026, opening targeted for 2030 and specialty services expanding through 2032. Cancer care from UT MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston will be fully integrated. The gift also supports undergraduate scholarships, student housing and the Texas Advanced Computing Center, home to one of the largest academic supercomputers. It launches a ten-year, $10 billion fundraising campaign for the university.

With this pledge the Dells become the first donors to give UT Austin more than $1 billion. Over 25 years they have funded a computer science building, provided $50 million to help create the Dell Medical School, which opened in 2016, and given $100 million to the UT for Me programme that helps students from low-income families pay for college. Speaking to the Associated Press, Michael Dell explained the gift simply: he and his wife were both born in Texas, and it is their home.

Dell was born in Houston in 1965 to a Jewish family, the son of an orthodontist and a stockbroker. He famously started selling personal computers from his dormitory room at UT Austin in 1984, dropping out to build Dell Technologies into one of the world's largest computer makers. The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation has long focused on children's health, education and family economic stability.