- The Biden administration is subsidizing the semiconductor industry to increase U.S. chip production.
- However, there is a shortage of workers in the AI chip manufacturing sector in the United States.
- Universities can be an important place to recruit new talent.
The US desperately needs more workers to manufacture AI chips.
The semiconductor industry is responsible for making AI chips, and over the past two decades the number of U.S. semiconductor workers has declined sharply, according to the Wall Street Journal.
This loss of workers coincided with a decline in the United States' share of the global chip manufacturing market. Between 1990 and 2020, the number of chips manufactured in the United States fell by a third. During the same period, the combined share of Taiwan, China and South Korea increased by almost 60%, the magazine reported.
The United States is keen to control chip manufacturing as artificial intelligence becomes important to national and international security. “Since general-purpose AI software, datasets, and algorithms are not effective targets for control, attention naturally turns to the computer hardware needed to implement modern AI systems,” Saif M. Khan and Alexander Mann writes in the Center for Security and Emerging. Technology report.
An advantage in chip manufacturing will help the United States maintain its global dominance. “Given the fundamental nature of certain technologies, such as advanced logic and memory chips, we must maintain as large a lead as possible,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a 2022 speech. Stated.
But chip manufacturing is the industry's biggest cost driver, according to a report from McKinsey & Company. And manufacturing in the US is only going to get more expensive.
That's why the Biden administration is providing billions of dollars for semiconductor research, development, manufacturing, and workforce development through CHIPS and the Science Act.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., a major chipmaker, is one of the companies using these subsidies to expand production in Arizona.
But subsidies only help if there are workers to do the work. If the United States really wants to keep up in the race to produce more chips, it needs to convince more workers to join the semiconductor industry.
Universities can be a fertile ground for recruiting such talent.
At Purdue University in Indiana, students are already excited about the buzz around AI and the soaring valuations of U.S. chipmakers like Nvidia.
The magazine reports that about 100 Purdue students majoring in materials, mechanical and electrical engineering, with a focus on semiconductors, have graduated, and another 135 students are enrolled in certificate programs. There's also a semiconductor club on campus, where he attracted 170 new members in two months.
Purdue is currently partnering with South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix to build a $3.9 billion semiconductor complex in West Lafayette that will manufacture AI memory chips, the publication reported. Still, “one of the biggest challenges is getting students to love semiconductors,” Nikhilesh Chawla, a materials engineering professor who co-directs Purdue's semiconductor program, told the Journal.
The good news is that experts also say industry labor costs are likely to decline in the coming years. Purdue University President Moon Chan told the Journal that one area where cost savings could be expected is in packaging, which helps connect chips to other devices. Packaging has long been labor-intensive, but SK Hynix's advanced packaging plans will help “rewrite the cost equation,” Chen told WSJ.
