In just the first half of this year, Kenneth Hao, chairman of one of the world’s largest private equity firms, and his wife Kathy Chiao, have committed at least $175 million to the University of California, following years of quiet but strong support for the university system. These mega-commitments, which have only garnered a modest smattering of attention and coverage, are yet another demonstration of the times we live in: A nine-figure gift is par for the course as an expanding range of less-well-known billionaires amp up their giving.
The couple’s gifts include a recent $100 million commitment to UC San Francisco, which is focused on human medical and life sciences; that gift followed $75 million to UC Davis, the system’s premier veterinary school and research institution. Together, the donations aim to help the UC institutions build the next generation of technology-enabled research, care and education. The donations have put Hao and Chiao, supporters of UC schools for more than a decade, into the company of major health institution supporters such as Joan and Sandy Weill and Michael and Susan Dell.
While some of Hao and Chiao’s recent gifts will support things like research and scholarships, a major component will go toward new construction to modernize UCSF’s century-old health campus. Even though UCSF is the only institution in the University of California system whose research focus is solely on the medical and life sciences, its aging facilities simply weren’t designed to accommodate the innovations and changes in medical care and technology of recent decades. The couple’s UCSF commitment will also help construct a new hospital building as part of an ongoing modernization of the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.
Meanwhile, the couple’s $75 million gift to UC Davis will support a larger expansion project of its veterinary care facilities by 50% and will fund veterinary student scholarships (to help address a significant shortage of veterinarians), research in translational medicine that advances cures and therapies in both animals and humans at UC Davis Health, UCSF, and other institutions, as well as programs for those unable to afford veterinary care.
Hao is chairman and managing partner of Silver Lake, a global technology investment firm with offices in the Bay Area, Tokyo and elsewhere, that’s behind successful semiconductor industry companies like Broadcom and Altera.
Why are Hao and Chiao — and other major donors — stepping up for hospital tech?
A confluence of advances in numerous fields of medicine, life sciences and technology is behind the couple’s recent donations to these University of California institutions, Hao told me. “There’s an extraordinary revolution in technology, in AI, of course, but also life sciences,” he said. “With these things happening at the same time, there’s a huge need for modernization in hospitals. There are never enough advanced hospital beds, and there’s never enough capacity for advanced vet care.”
Hao and Chiao’s weren’t the only major hospital-and-technology building gifts this year, nor even the largest: Computer industry megadonors Michael and Susan Dell last month announced a $750 million gift to the University of Texas at Austin. The Dells’ is a tech-oriented gift from a technology fortune supporting the construction of what the university is calling the country’s first “artificial-intelligence-native hospital.” The University of Texas has said that the AI technology will help doctors detect disease earlier and personalize treatments. The Dell commitment will help fund a new research campus, scholarships and other advanced computing infrastructure.
And, like Hao and Chiao, billionaire philanthropists Joan and Sandy Weill have also directed major funding toward infrastructure for human and veterinary medicine. Early in 2026, their Weill Family Foundation gave UC Davis $120 million, the largest-ever veterinary medicine gift worldwide. The Weills have also given hundreds of millions for human healthcare and research, including more than $600 million to Weill Cornell Medicine and $200 million to the Weill Cancer Hub West, a UCSF and Stanford University collaboration in cancer research
Half of the $100 million Hao-Chiao commitment to UCSF will support capital projects across the school, $40 million will be earmarked for innovation initiatives, and $10 million will be directed to the above-mentioned Weill Cancer Hub West.
Hao and Chiao’s other UCSF giving and wider interests
Hao and Chiao have been supporters of UCSF for more than a decade, such as with a $5 million donation last year to develop a real-time, AI-powered monitoring platform for clinical care. Hao serves as vice chair of the UCSF board of directors and as co-chair of the UCSF Health Executive Council. The couple are among the top philanthropic benefactors to UCSF, along with Marc and Lynne Benioff, the Sandler Foundation and Susan and Bill Oberndorf.
The couple have also supported a range of Asian American causes — Hao’s family has roots in China and Taiwan — including through scholarships and support for Asian American studies at Harvard, Hao’s alma mater. They’ve also funded the UC Berkeley School of Public Health through scholarships and provided foundational funding for Berkeley’s Impact Innovators, a program that sponsors student leaders to advance community health while building skills in social entrepreneurship and community partnership.
Hao and Chiao do have a private foundation, the Hao Family Foundation, whose assets grew substantially through 2024, when they stood at around $304 million. But aside from a smattering of smaller gifts (including to Menlo School, a private college prep school in the Bay Area) the vast majority of the foundation’s payout through 2024 has gone into donor-advised funds, particularly at the Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund.
While the bricks and mortar of health institutions might not seem as important as the discoveries made within the buildings, the bottom line is that hospitals and research facilities require increasingly complex infrastructure to enable breakthroughs. “If I had to put forth one unifying theme on this whole front, [it’s] that I love the academic medical center as a model to solve the most difficult challenges in disease,” Hao said. “These things are as intractable as they’ve always been, but we have incredible tools — the time is now for this kind of investment.”
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