Billionaire Ken Griffin donates $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University.
“Griffin’s $3 billion gift will consist of $1 billion to support CMU’s Pittsburgh campus, split evenly between flexible support for the university’s highest priorities and a $500 million investment in its top-ranked School of Computer Science, which will be renamed the Kenneth C Griffin School of Computer Science. An additional $2 billion will support the launch of CMU Miami,” the university announced.
No university in the history of US education has received such a donation until Citadel founder Ken Griffin pledged an unprecedented $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University. Part of the money will go towards making a new campus in Miami where Griffin stays and the rest will be for the development of the university campus in Pittsburgh.
“Throughout our history, CMU has anticipated moments of profound technological change and responded with new ways of thinking and solving problems,” university president Farnam Jahanian said in a statement. “Artificial intelligence represents one of the defining intellectual developments of our time, and it demands that we rethink how we educate students, conduct research and partner with others.”
Citadel is a Miami-based hedge fund that was established in 1990 by Griffin after he graduated from Harvard University with a BA degree in economics. Griffin has an approximate net worth of $57.6 billion and is listed as the 33rd richest person in the world, according to Forbes. Citadel lists an investment capital of $76 billion and says it is the most profitable hedge fund of all time.
Griffin will also become a member of Carnegie Mellon’s board of trustees. The board already includes hedge fund billionaire David Tepper, a Carnegie Mellon graduate and donor. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.