The Gates Computer Science Building was completed in January 1996 and is the home of the Computer Science Department (CSD) and the Computer Systems Laboratory (CSL). The 150,000 square foot building houses 550 faculty, staff and students and cost $38M to build and furnish. Robert A. M. Stern Associates of New York and Fong and Chan of San Francisco were the architects, selected following an invited national competition. Rudolph & Sletten of Foster City was the general contractor. There were 47 subcontractors working over a 16-month period.

The Gates building is named for Bill Gates, co-founder and CEO of Microsoft Corp., who gave a $6M gift to the project. The rest of the funding was donated by individuals and corporations and the Stanford School of Engineering Venture Capital Fund.