In August 2004 Dr. Min H. Kao entered into a memorandum of understanding with the university that a 150,000-square-foot building costing no more than $250 per square foot would be built and exclusively used by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with Kao contributing the lesser of $12.5 million or one-third of the cost of the building. The State of Tennessee contributed $25 million toward the building’s construction. Ground was broken on May 14, 2007, under a tent in the courtyard between Perkins and Ferris Halls. The Kaos and several members of the Garmin administrative team joined UT and College of Engineering administrators and faculty and local political and civic dignitaries at the event.
On July 1, 2007, the Department of Computer Science, which had been a part of the College of Arts and Sciences, was merged into the Department of Electrical Engineering, and the building became the home of the combined departments. The board of trustees officially named the building for Kao at its October 2008 meeting. Architects for the $41.6 million project were Knoxville firms Bullock Smith and Partners and Lindsay and Maples.
The six-story building features a soaring atrium and a spacious deck with a view of downtown Knoxville. It has over 94,000 square feet of academic space, including 10 classrooms and 13 laboratories. The building was placed into service for the spring semester 2012 and dedicated on March 14, 2012. Kao and his wife, Fan, attended, as did Governor Bill Haslam.