If Curtis Priem, Nvidia’s first CTO, had held onto all his stock, he’d be the 16th richest person in America. Instead, he sold out years ago and gave most of his fortune to his alma mater Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Part of his commitment to his alma mater includes helping it become the first university in the world to house an IBM Quantum System One computer. Expected to be operational by next spring, it will be the cornerstone of a new computational center that will hopefully help RPI and the surrounding area attract top talent.
Since 2001, Priem has given $275 million to RPI, accounting for 40% of RPI’s total gifts during that period, and he’s pledged approximately $80 million more. Only half that amount has ever been publicly acknowledged as gifts from Priem. An anonymous pledge of $360 million was announced by RPI in 2001 around the time Priem started giving, but neither he nor the school would comment on whether he is the donor.
Part of his commitment to his alma mater includes helping it become the first university in the world to house an IBM Quantum System One computer. Expected to be operational by next spring, it will be the cornerstone of a new computational center that will hopefully help RPI and the surrounding area attract top talent.
Since 2001, Priem has given $275 million to RPI, accounting for 40% of RPI’s total gifts during that period, and he’s pledged approximately $80 million more. Only half that amount has ever been publicly acknowledged as gifts from Priem. An anonymous pledge of $360 million was announced by RPI in 2001 around the time Priem started giving, but neither he nor the school would comment on whether he is the donor.
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TechTranscript
00:00 Curtis Pream is an American inventor. He has almost 200 patents, helped design the first graphics processor ever for PCs in the early 1980s,
00:08 and later co-founded semiconductor firm NVIDIA, where he spent a decade working as its first chief technology officer.
00:15 Pream would be the 17th richest person in America, worth about $70 billion had he held onto all of his NVIDIA stock.
00:22 Instead, he sold out by 2006 and gave most of his fortune to his alma mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, over the last two decades.
00:30 Forbes estimates that Pream now has a fortune worth closer to $30 million, just over one-tenth of what he's given to RPI.
00:38 That fortune includes a $6 million home near Fremont, California, where he lives off the grid,
00:43 with unreliable cell service and writes what he calls "manifestos" filled with equations about how to solve world problems like repairing the Earth.
00:52 Since 2001, Pream, who's 64 and graduated from RPI in 1982, has given $275 million to the Institute,
01:01 accounting for 40% of its total gifts during that period, and he's pledged approximately $80 million more.
01:08 Only half that amount has ever been publicly acknowledged as gifts from Pream.
01:13 An anonymous pledge of $360 million was announced by RPI in 2001, around the time Pream started giving,
01:19 but neither he nor the school would comment on whether he was the donor.
01:23 $40 million of Pream's donation was used to help construct the 1,165-seat Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute concert hall,
01:32 which Pream calls "the most technically advanced performance space in the world."
01:36 The hall is housed in the Curtis Pream Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center.
01:42 But impeccable acoustics aren't Pream's biggest commitment to his alma mater.
01:47 Most recently, he has helped RPI become the first university in the world to house a quantum computer,
01:53 a still-rare, very expensive, and very fast computer that relies on quantum mechanical effects.
02:00 Expected to be operational by spring of 2024, it will be the cornerstone of a new computational center
02:06 that will hopefully help RPI and the surrounding area, the capital region of New York, attract top talent.
02:14 The idea for his biggest contribution yet came in March of 2023 at a board retreat in Carlsbad, California.
02:22 That's where Pream suggested to RPI's new president, Martin Schmidt, that they try to bring a quantum computer to RPI.
02:29 An interesting idea, but one Schmidt thought would be way too costly, among other barriers.
02:35 Schmidt told Forbes that the board left Carlsbad with him agreeing that he would drive down to see Dario Gil,
02:42 the head of IBM Research, to see if they could convince him that IBM should put a quantum computer on the RPI campus.
02:50 Their pitch worked. Just three months later, in June, RPI formally announced plans to build an IBM Quantum System 1 computer on campus.
02:58 In 2024, which would make it the only university in the world to house one.
03:03 At an October groundbreaking event for the Pream-funded quantum computer, IBM's head of research said that with quantum computers,
03:11 RPI would be at the forefront of ushering in a completely new paradigm of computing that offers profound possibilities
03:18 for the exploration of a range of previously intractable problems across areas such as material design,
03:24 sustainability, pharmaceutical development, healthcare, and much more.
03:29 At that same event, Pream announced that the computer would be his last big gift and begin the wind-down of his family foundation.
03:36 [Music]