Samsung commits $3.7 mn to chipmaking education at UT Austin

Samsung Electronics Co. has committed $3.7 million to University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering to educate talent and boost the growing semiconductor ecosystem in Central Texas, the world’s largest memory chip maker said on Monday.

Samsung will contribute $1 million to the university’s Cockrell School as part of its workforce development plan. The fund will be used to increase participation in engineering programs and promote semiconductor research.

The company has also committed an additional $2.7 million to the school with an emphasis on research and development and will partner with the university on selecting the projects. The contribution also aims to increase the number of undergraduate and graduate students pursuing careers in chip manufacturing, as well as modernize the school’s teaching lab facilities.

“Our legislature’s bold investment in the CHIPS and Science Act is positioning University of Texas to design and build the future of semiconductors, and now our partnership with Samsung enables us to educate the workforce, fundamental to bolstering the US supply chain,” said University of Texas President Jay Hartzell.

“We have hired hundreds of University of Texas Austin alumni and provided internship opportunities for hundreds more. This opportunity builds upon and formalizes our collaboration and furthers a strategic plan to address the needs of the workforce,” said Bonyoung Koo, president of Samsung Austin Semiconductor LLC, the Austin-based foundry unit of Samsung.

The chip industry’s workforce will grow by nearly 115,000 jobs by 2030, according to a July 2023 report by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). However, due to current degree completion rates, some 67,000 of the new jobs risk going unfilled, 27,300 of which are for engineers, the report said.

Samsung is building a $17 billion chipmaking plant in Taylor, Texas, as the tech giant aims to overtake bigger foundry rival TSMC in one of the world’s biggest semiconductor markets.

About 25 kilometers from Austin, the plant is scheduled to complete construction by the end of this year. Aiming to begin operations in the second half of 2024, the factory will manufacture chips for the artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and 5G network industries.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.