Hedge-fund billionaire and Citadel CEO Ken Griffin has pledged a record-breaking donation of $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University, including $2 billion to establish a new campus in Miami, in what the university says is the largest single donation ever made by an individual to higher education. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal the majority of the funding will go toward building a 35-acre Carnegie Mellon University campus in Miami’s Wynwood neighbourhood, while an additional $1 billion will support the university’s main campus in Pittsburgh.
“The students who graduate and the tech companies that come to Miami to leverage those skills will change the very fabric of Miami for decades if not centuries to come,” Griffin said in an interview.
The university projects it will eventually support more than 3,500 undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. students, nearly 300 faculty and over 600 staff. The campus will sit on a site bought from developer Moishe Mana for $1.1 billion, according to a press release. The Journal described the site as both a 35-acre and a roughly 30-acre property in different places.
Carnegie Mellon, known for computer science, artificial intelligence and robotics, will open a campus in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood focused on technology and innovation. That would make it by far the university’s largest expansion. Its satellite campuses in New York City, Mountain View, Calif. , and Qatar each serve up to a few hundred students. Who will ultimately hold the deed hasn’t been made public. Griffin is joining Carnegie Mellon’s Board of Trustees, and the university’s computer science school in Pittsburgh will be renamed the Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science. Citadel has a long history of hiring Carnegie Mellon graduates, including many quantitative engineers.
Programs will combine artificial intelligence, computing and machine learning with the university’s humanities, fine arts and design disciplines. The campus will host industry research labs and venture studios so students, faculty and partners can build technologies together. The focus fits the region’s growing defense-tech and healthcare sectors, the Journal noted.