Indian American couple Anuradha and Dr. Vikas Sinha are giving $20 million to the University of North Texas to establish a new college dedicated to artificial intelligence and advanced analytics – a landmark investment in education and the next generation of technology leaders.
For the Sinhas, who came to the United States from India as students, the contribution also carries a deeply personal meaning: an opportunity to give back to the country where they built their lives and careers.
In recognition of their generosity, the university will name the Anuradha and Vikas Sinha College of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics, creating an academic hub focused on the development, application and responsible use of artificial intelligence, intelligent systems and data analytics.
Speaking at the ceremony announcing the gift, Dr. Sinha described it as an investment in the generations that will follow.
“Anu and I see this as an investment in what students will be able to imagine and accomplish in the years ahead,” he said. “Artificial intelligence will be one of the defining technologies of our generation, and universities have an essential role to play in preparing the people who will shape its future.”
He said the new college would go beyond teaching students how to use AI, preparing them to “build it, understand it, question it, govern it and apply it responsibly.”
That commitment is rooted in the Sinhas’ own experience of what education and opportunity can make possible.
“Education has opened doors for us throughout our lives, and we want to hold those doors open for others,” Dr. Sinha said.
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He pointed particularly to students who may arrive in America from another country carrying the same ambitions and belief in education that the couple once did.
“For us, this gift is about paying that opportunity forward and recognizing that immigrants don’t simply participate in the American dream – they help build it,” he said.
That sentiment gives the Sinhas’ philanthropy particular resonance within the Indian-American community. Their journey reflects a story familiar across generations of immigrants: arriving with an education and ambition, finding opportunity in America, building successful careers and, ultimately, investing some of that success in the institutions and communities that helped make it possible.
The $20 million contribution will create six permanent endowments supporting college leadership, student scholarships, endowed professorships, entrepreneurship and incubation, advanced research and emerging technologies. The college will unite expertise across artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced data analytics, health informatics and learning technologies.
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For Dean Kinshuk, who leads the college, the significance of the investment lies in its breadth – supporting the people, ideas and infrastructure needed to build a leading academic and research enterprise.
“What makes this gift extraordinary is that it gives us the ability to think bigger about every part of the student and faculty experience,” Kinshuk said. “Our goal is not simply to teach students how to use new technologies. We want them to understand them, question them and be prepared to shape what those technologies become.”
From Hyderabad to America
Behind the extraordinary gift lies a journey that began thousands of miles from Texas, in a family home in India where education, discipline and integrity were deeply ingrained values.
Dr. Sinha grew up in Hyderabad as the eldest of three children. His mother earned a master’s degree in sociology, while his father was a senior government officer who retired as the Surveyor General of India. In the Sinha household, education was regarded as the foundation upon which everything else could be built.
Those generational values – learning, discipline, precision, hard work and an ethical approach to one’s responsibilities – would follow Sinha across continents and through a career spanning some of the most consequential transformations in technology.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Sri Venkateswara University, Sinha initially dreamed of becoming a research scientist in Antarctica. Inspired by a friend’s brother, he began reaching out to universities in the United States. A professor at Florida Atlantic University responded and offered him a fully funded assistantship in ocean engineering.
That opportunity brought him to America.
As technology evolved, so did Sinha’s career. He moved into software engineering and predictive analytics, eventually rising to head global research and development at statistical software company SPSS. After IBM acquired SPSS in 2009, he led IBM’s predictive analytics portfolio as statistics, machine learning and computing increasingly converged into what became modern data science.
He later held senior architecture and engineering leadership roles at CA Technologies before joining Broadcom in 2018, where he now serves as a vice president in the Mainframe Software Division.
Yet reaching the upper levels of the technology industry did not end Sinha’s own pursuit of education. He earned a master’s degree in predictive analytics from Northwestern University and completed his Ph.D. in data science at UNT in 2023.
Anuradha Sinha shares that commitment to education. Both she and her husband came to the United States after earning civil engineering degrees from Sri Venkateswara University and later pursued graduate degrees at Florida Atlantic University.
Their philanthropy, therefore, carries a deeply personal connection to the experience of being students themselves – particularly Dr. Sinha’s arrival in America on a funded assistantship that helped make his own journey possible.
A growing legacy of giving
The $20 million contribution is not the Sinhas’ first major investment in UNT.
In 2024, the couple gave $3 million to establish the Anuradha and Vikas Sinha Department of Data Science. That was followed by a $2.15 million gift toward the Sinha Innovation Lab for Data Science.
“Vikas and Anu have taken something they believe deeply in – the power of education to change lives – and built a legacy around extending that opportunity to others,” said Brandon Buzbee, UNT vice president for University Advancement.
Their commitment is also becoming a family legacy. The Sinhas’ son, Suraj, has been part of the family’s philanthropic journey at UNT, carrying forward values that can be traced from one generation in Hyderabad to another in the United States.
UNT President Harrison Keller said the couple’s story reflects the broader contributions international students make to the United States.
“International students come to our universities to learn, but their impact extends far beyond the degrees they earn,” Keller said. “They contribute ideas, build companies, create jobs, lead communities, and create opportunities for the generations who follow them. Vikas and Anu’s story is a powerful example of what can begin when a talented student chooses UNT.”
The university plans to mark the establishment of the Anuradha and Vikas Sinha College of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics with a university celebration later this year, bringing together the Sinha family, students, faculty, university leaders and members of the North Texas community.