Stanford University
Private research university founded in 1885 in Stanford, California, with seven schools, about 17,300 students and an annual AI Index published by its Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
Industry: Higher education and research | Location: Stanford, United States | Founded: 1885
About Stanford University
Stanford University is a private research university in Stanford, California. Its website describes a single campus and seven schools: Business, Education, Engineering, Humanities and Sciences, Law, Medicine, and Sustainability. Enrollment in the autumn quarter of 2025 was 7,289 undergraduate and 10,025 graduate students, with 2,402 faculty members.
California senator and former governor Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane, founded the university in 1885 as a memorial to their son, Leland Stanford Jr., who died in 1884. Its legal name is Leland Stanford Junior University, and it opened on 1 October 1891 on the family's Palo Alto stock farm. Jonathan Levin, a former dean of the Graduate School of Business, has been president since 1 August 2024. Jenny Martinez is provost. A Board of Trustees, the president, the provost and an Academic Council govern the university.
Stanford's history is closely tied to the technology industry. In 1939 graduate students William Hewlett and David Packard developed an audio oscillator that led to HP, and Stanford Research Park opened in 1951 with Varian Associates as its first tenant. The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory was founded in 1963, and in 1997 and 1998 graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed PageRank and founded Google. The Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability launched in 2022 as the university's first new school in 75 years.
The university reports more than 7,500 externally sponsored awards, more than 70 percent of them federally funded, and 15 independent laboratories, centers and institutes. It operates SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory for the US Department of Energy. Sponsored support revenue was USD 2.3 billion in the fiscal year ended 31 August 2025, including SLAC. The university says it has had 36 Nobel Prize winners since its founding.
Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence publishes the annual AI Index, whose 2026 edition appeared in April 2026. TechScoop's August 2026 article on Saudi Arabia's AI investment cites that edition for the figure of about USD 2.03 billion in private AI investment in the kingdom in 2025, which placed it tenth globally.
Leadership
- Jonathan Levin, President
- Jenny Martinez, Provost