Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of the hedge fund Citadel, announced on Wednesday a donation of 3 billion dollars to Carnegie Mellon University to establish a new campus in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, marking the largest individual donation in the history of higher education in the United States.
The figure exceeds the 1.8 billion that Michael Bloomberg donated to Johns Hopkins University in 2018, which was the previous record.
Of the 3 billion, 2 billion will be allocated to the new CMU Miami campus, and 1 billion will strengthen the original Pittsburgh campus, including 500 million for its School of Computer Science, which will be renamed Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science.
To make the project possible, Griffin acquired the Mana Wynwood complex—over 30 acres in the heart of the neighborhood—from developer Moishe Mana for 1.1 billion dollars in a cash operation without intermediaries that had been in negotiation for approximately three years, according to The Real Deal.
The campus will cover more than 35 acres in Wynwood. Construction is set to begin in 2027, and the first students could enroll in 2028, pending the necessary regulatory approvals.
When fully operational, CMU Miami will host over 3,500 undergraduate, master's, and doctoral students, nearly 300 faculty members, and more than 600 employees, representing around 900 direct jobs in the area.
The academic model breaks away from the traditional university: instead of conventional degrees, learning will be organized around four major social challenges: human health and biological discovery; national security and strategic capabilities; energy and climate resilience; and advanced manufacturing and industrial transformation.
Computing, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity will play a central role.
"Leads America in computer science, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, and has a world-renowned robotics program," Griffin said, referring to CMU's strengths.
When explaining his investment in Miami, Griffin specifically referenced the Cuban community in the city. "It is a city of people who came to America seeking a better future," he stated, as reported by CBS Miami.
"Consider, for example, the large population of Cuban immigrants in Miami —committed to their families, dedicated to education, and yearning for their children to live the American dream."
Griffin's words carry geographic weight: the campus will be just a few kilometers from Hialeah—home to over 160,000 people of Cuban descent—and Little Havana.
Cubans make up between 25% and 35% of the population in Miami-Dade County, the largest concentration of that community outside of Cuba.
For Cuban families with children of university age and legal status in the United States, the arrival of an elite institution at that distance represents an unprecedented opportunity.
It is worth noting that Florida approved a rule in September that prohibits the enrollment of undocumented students in public universities starting from the 2027-2028 academic year, although CMU is a private institution.
Griffin, a native of Florida with a fortune estimated by Forbes at over $57 billion, has been solidifying his presence in Miami for years.
In 2022, he moved Citadel's global headquarters from Chicago, and is currently building a 54-story tower in Brickell valued at over 1 billion dollars. In January of this year, he added the 545Wyn building in Wynwood for more than 180 million.
His philanthropic record in Miami-Dade includes nine million dollars for public schools in the county, 50 million to Baptist Health South Florida for Alzheimer’s research, and another 50 million to the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami.
"This will, in a sense, be the East Coast's response to what is happening in Silicon Valley," Griffin summarized while announcing the project, which Miami's mayor, Eileen Higgins, described as "transformational" as the city is already working on rezoning parts of Wynwood to allow for educational use.
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