This Indian-origin couple gifted $20 million to Texas university. All about the new AI college they are helping to build

An Indian-origin couple has donated $20 million to the University of North Texas (UNT) for education and research in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced analytics. Anuradha and Vikas Sinha are alumni of the public research university in Texas, known as Texas A&M University.

The gift will lead to the creation of the Anuradha and Vikas Sinha College of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics. The UNT press spokesman said the new college will unite efforts in the areas of AI, cybersecurity, data science, health informatics and other technology-related areas.

New college to focus on AI and intelligent systems

The new college will be a place of academic and research excellence for the development and application of AI and intelligent systems. It will also be devoted to the responsible use of emerging technologies.

The college will have two academic divisions, UNT said. The Division of Applied Intelligence and Informatics will be dedicated to the development and application of intelligent systems. The Division of Information and Learning Applications will explore the interplay between information and intelligent systems and people and institutions.

The college will also be the home of the Applied Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Institute. The institute will facilitate research in UNT and foster interdisciplinary collaboration between different academic fields and industry partners and researchers.

A $20 million gift will fund scholarships and research

The donation will be used to establish six endowed permanent scholarships. These will help support the college's leadership, professorships, advanced research and emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, incubation, and student scholarships, UNT said.

The Sinhas have been previously supporters of the university. In 2024, they created the department of Data Science, Anuradha and Vikas Sinha, and have drawn allocations of scholarships, faculty and research funding. They also played a key role in the founding of the Sinha Innovation Lab for Data Science in 2025.

“Education has opened doors for us throughout our lives, and we want to hold those doors open for others,” Vikas Sinha said in the university's statement. Universities should not just educate students about the use of AI but also equip them to create, comprehend, control and responsibly utilise AI, he added.

From Andhra Pradesh to a career in technology

Vikas and Anuradha have studied civil engineering in Andhra Pradesh, and they later moved to the US to pursue further studies. They both obtained their graduate degrees from Florida Atlantic University.

Vikas has since attended Northwestern University and earned his PhD at UNT in 2023. Now Vice President of the Mainframe Software Division at Broadcom, he has been on the UNT College of Information Leadership Board since 2023.

UNT's new college will serve to help prepare the university's graduates for an AI and data-driven job market, according to President Harrison Keller. The universities are based in Denton and Frisco, have an enrolment of almost 44,000, and offer 230 degree programmes. Last year the university awarded over 13,000 degrees, the university said.