Founded by Michael Dell in his dorm room at the University of Texas at Austin in 1984, the pioneering personal computer company made its mark by selling affordable PCs directly to consumers. The company’s offerings grew to include televisions and cameras, and by the early 2000s it came to dominate the consumer electronics market. Dell Computer went private in 2013, when Michael Dell and the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners purchased it for $25 billion; the company returned to public markets in 2018 as Dell Technologies. In 2016 the company and an investment firm acquired data storage provider EMC for $67 billion—at the time the biggest tech deal in history. In May 2025, amid growing demand for artificial intelligence systems, Dell unveiled new AI servers powered by Nvidia chips.
