Nvidia director and venture capitalist Mark Stevens, alongside his wife Mary, has pledged $175 million to establish a new medical school. This initiative, a collaborative effort between Sutter Health and Santa Clara University, marks the first new medical school to be established in the San Francisco Bay Area in over a century. This significant contribution follows closely on the heels of the couple’s $200 million commitment to the University of Southern California, earmarked for advancing AI research.
Key Facts
This generous donation represents the largest single gift ever received by both Santa Clara University and the non-profit Sutter Health, as detailed in a joint statement released on Friday.
The planned 82,000-square-foot campus will be situated in Santa Clara, in close proximity to Nvidia’s corporate headquarters. The facility is designed to accommodate classrooms, advanced simulation labs, and an anatomy laboratory.
The medical school aims to admit approximately 120 students per cohort, with operations slated to commence following the successful completion of a multiyear accreditation process.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, an alumnus of Santa Clara University, lauded the partnership, describing it as “a new model for medical education built to support a more innovative, connected healthcare system.”
Mary Stevens is an alumna of Santa Clara University, graduating in 1984. The couple has previously supported the university with nearly $40 million directed towards its athletic facilities.
Forbes Valuation
Mark Stevens’ net worth is estimated by Forbes to be $12.5 billion, a fortune largely amassed from an early strategic investment in Nvidia. His career includes a tenure at the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, where he was instrumental in early investments in prominent technology companies such as Google, PayPal, and LinkedIn, before establishing his own investment firm, S-Cubed Capital. Stevens also holds a minority ownership stake in the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.
Key Background
This substantial philanthropic announcement arrives just ten days after the Stevenses revealed a separate $200 million donation to their alma mater, the University of Southern California. This prior gift will lead to the renaming of the School of Advanced Computing within the Viterbi School of Engineering to the Mark and Mary Stevens School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence. Unlike the medical school donation, the USC gift is designated to support faculty recruitment and the development of AI applications across a broad spectrum of disciplines, including health sciences, security, business, and the arts.
The Stevens’ recent pledges are part of a notable trend of substantial, AI-focused philanthropic contributions emerging in recent weeks. In April, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation committed $750 million to the University of Texas at Austin to establish what the university terms the nation’s first “AI-native” medical center, alongside provisions for undergraduate scholarships and computing infrastructure. Similarly, the University of Wisconsin–Madison announced it received over $100 million in private gift commitments last month to support its new College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence, scheduled to launch on July 1, 2026, representing its first new academic division in over four decades. In January, Tench Coxe, a fellow board director at Nvidia, donated $100 million from his $8.6 billion fortune to aid in the establishment of a medical center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Business Style Takeaway: The significant philanthropic commitments from Mark and Mary Stevens, particularly their dual focus on medical education and AI research, underscore a strategic investment in future innovation. These large-scale donations highlight the growing synergy between technological advancement, particularly in AI, and the critical sectors of healthcare and higher education, signaling a trend of private capital shaping the future of these fields.
Based on materials from : www.forbes.com