Indian-Origin Couple Donates $20 Million to US University for New AI College

Indian-origin couple Anuradha and Vikas Sinha have donated $20 million to the University of North Texas (UNT) to establish a new College of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics. The initiative aims to strengthen education, research and innovation in artificial intelligence and related technology fields.

The new institution will be named the Anuradha and Vikas Sinha College of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics in recognition of the couple’s contribution.

The college will bring together academic programmes and research in areas including artificial intelligence, data analytics, cybersecurity, health informatics, information science and learning technologies. The donation will also support six permanent endowments focused on scholarships, professorships, leadership, entrepreneurship and incubation, advanced research and emerging technologies.

Both Anuradha and Vikas Sinha moved to the United States for higher education after completing bachelor’s degrees in civil engineering from Sri Venkateswara University in India. They later pursued graduate education at Florida Atlantic University.

Vikas Sinha began his schooling at Kendriya Vidyalaya and completed high school in 1984. He then studied engineering at Sri Venkateswara University from 1984 to 1988, earning his BTech degree.

After moving to the United States, he completed an MS in Engineering at Florida Atlantic University between 1988 and 1991. He subsequently pursued doctoral studies in engineering at the same university from 1991 to 1994.

His academic journey later expanded into management and data science. He completed a general management programme at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in 2002-03. He then earned an MS in Data Sciences, previously known as MS Predictive Analytics, from Northwestern University between 2013 and 2016.

Sinha continued his studies with advanced graduate work in Advanced Data Science at Northwestern University in 2017-18. At the University of North Texas, he completed a Graduate Academic Certificate in Data Analytics between 2020 and 2021 and earned a PhD in Information Science with a focus on Data Science between 2020 and 2023.

His professional career has covered software development, research and development, predictive analytics, data management, cybersecurity and technology leadership.

Sinha began his professional career at Florida Atlantic University, where he worked as a Graduate Research Assistant from 1988 to 1994. He later joined NTT DATA Services, formerly known as Keane, as a Software Programmer in 1994 and became a Senior Software Programmer in 1995.

In 1996, he joined SPSS, which was later acquired by IBM. Over the years, he held several senior positions, including Release Manager, Senior Manager in Research and Development, Director of R&D, Vice President of Global Technical Support and Vice President of Research and Development.

At IBM, Sinha served as Program Director and later as Director of SPSS Predictive Analytics Worldwide R&D between 2009 and 2014.

He subsequently held senior leadership roles at CA Technologies, including positions related to data management, mainframe security, databases, data management, machine learning and cybersecurity.

Sinha joined Broadcom in 2018 as Vice President of Global Customer Experience and Strategic Alliances in the Mainframe Software Division. Since March 2025, he has served as Vice President of Worldwide Engineering and Architecture in the Mainframe Software Division.

His association with the University of North Texas has also grown over the years. He has served as a Leadership Board Member of the university’s College of Information since August 2023 and was an Associate Graduate Faculty member of the Toulouse Graduate School from July 2023 to May 2025.

The $20 million contribution is not the first major support provided by the Sinha family to UNT. The family previously supported the university’s data science initiatives, including funding for the Department of Data Science in 2024 and the Sinha Innovation Lab for Data Science in 2025.

Following his doctoral studies, Sinha and his family had earlier committed $3 million to establish the Anuradha and Vikas Sinha Department of Data Science within UNT’s College of Information. That contribution supported student scholarships, professorships, research and other academic initiatives.

The latest $20 million donation marks a significant expansion of the family’s support for artificial intelligence and advanced analytics education. The new college is expected to bring multiple technology-focused disciplines together while creating additional opportunities for students, researchers and innovators in emerging fields.