Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley is located at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field.

In Fall 2002, Carnegie Mellon initiated a full-time and part-time Master of Science in Software Engineering degree.

[6] For several years, Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley operated a long-distance capability to Pittsburgh's Tepper School of Business.

In the bi-coastal programs, students are required to divide their time between the campuses in Pittsburgh and Silicon Valley and also complete an approved internship.

The Masters in ECE program has equivalent course requirements between the Pittsburgh and Silicon Valley campuses.

[9] In Fall 2008, a Ph.D. program in Electrical and Computer Engineering was initiated, offering students opportunities for advanced studies and research in the fields of mobility, security, and wireless sensors and networking.

Due to it being located in Silicon Valley, many local students are from companies such as Yahoo, Google, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Oracle, Boeing and Microsoft.

CMUSV has now grown into a research community with initiatives in wireless sensors, machine learning, context area computing, security, energy technology, software and systems engineering and disaster management.

The first of these took place on April 30, 2007, at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus and focused on The New Software Industry - Forces at Play, Business in Motion,[12] while the second conference took place on April 22, 2008, at the Santa Clara Convention Center and focused on The Mobile Future - Technology Revolutionizing our Lives.

Members of the class of 2008 collected money to hire a contractor to build and install a 10-foot fence, that was then subsequently painted with images symbolizing the west coast (like the Golden Gate Bridge, or NASA's Hangar One).

[15][16] Faculty Joy Ying Zhang and the research staff of Mobile Technologies (creator of Jibbigo) were acquired by Facebook.