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Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang have donated $75 million to Vanderbilt University for its new San Francisco academic campus.
The Nvidia CEO and his wife’s contribution has already spurred over $100 million in additional private support. The new college will build on the California College of the Arts’ legacy, integrating advanced technology with artistic imagination and design to cultivate future creators. Vanderbilt’s San Francisco campus, focusing on engineering, entrepreneurship, and design, is part of the university’s broader expansion efforts. The Huangs aim to help San Francisco remain a global center of creativity and innovation.
Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang have given Vanderbilt University $75 million for its new San Francisco academic campus. The gift will be used to establish the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang College of Art, Architecture and Design. It will be the flagship academic unit at Vanderbilt San Francisco, which is set to open in 2027.
The donation from Huang, founder and current president and CEO of the computer chip company Nvidia and his wife, is being structured as a matching gift. According to the university’s announcement, it has generated additional private support from several donors, totaling over $100 million thus far, which represents more than 40% of the funds needed for the full match to be achieved.
“Technology expands what we can build. Art and design determine why we build it. Together they shape civilization. We are delighted to partner with Vanderbilt University to cultivate the next generation of creators and help San Francisco remain one of the world’s great centers of creativity, innovation and culture,” Jensen Huang said in the university’s release.
The new college will build on the nearly 120-year legacy of the California College of the Arts. It is intended to serve as “a hub for the creative fields that shape how we see, build and understand the world.” The college will emphasize advanced technology at the same time it prepares students in the foundations of art and architecture. The aim is to “establish a new intellectual environment in which artistic imagination, spatial reasoning, material experimentation and design practice become central modes of discovery, creation and innovation.”
“San Francisco offers an extraordinary environment for learning across art, architecture, design and culture,” said Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier in a statement. “With the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang College of Art, Architecture and Design, Vanderbilt is positioning these branches of creation as the heart of our San Francisco campus. This college, together with additional academic programming under development, will prepare creative leaders to shape culture, industries and communities in San Francisco’s thriving economy, nationally and around the world. In partnership with the city and surrounding community, we will blend Vanderbilt’s distinctive excellence with San Francisco’s distinctive excellence to build something truly remarkable, together.”
anderbilt’s San Francisco Campus
Vanderbilt San Francisco will focus on engineering, entrepreneurship and design. Plans call for an enrollment of about 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students, along with the addition of full-time faculty and staff. In addition, Vanderbilt will establish the California College of the Arts Institute, preserving and advancing CCA’s traditions of leadership on behalf of the cultural life of San Francisco and the Bay Area.
Vanderbilt San Francisco is just one example of Vanderbilt’s recent expansions, which also include a New York City campus, which officially opens in Fall 2026, a graduate campus planned for West Palm Beach, and the Institute for Quantum Innovation in Chattanooga.