Techno-Nationalism

Chapter 25Chip Schools

Purdue University, in Indiana, has long been known as one of America’s engineering hotbeds. NASA has a history of recruiting engineers from Purdue and some 27 of its astronauts claim it as their alma mater, including Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, in 1969, and Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, in 1972.

But in the Spring of 2024, the university celebrated perhaps its biggest milestone: South Korea’s SK hynix Inc., the world’s sixth-largest semiconductor company, announced it would build a US$4 billion semiconductor fabrication facility at Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette. When completed, the new plant will do advanced ‘packaging’ of high bandwidth memory chips, the kind of chips needed for the most advanced uses of artificial intelligence (AI). (See Chapter 7 for a refresher on the semiconductor fabrication process).

The SK hynix win occurred in tandem with the rollout of the CHIPS and Science Act, in 2022, the same year that Purdue launched its Semiconductor Degree Program, which features a range of core and elective courses across the semiconductor spectrum.

In the fall of 2023, its engineering and science programs, along with Purdue’s Polytechnic Institute, claimed almost 22,000 undergrads and around 7,000 graduate students pursuing master’s and doctorate degrees.

Through a partnership with Ivy Tech Community College, another 13,000 students were enrolled in advanced manufacturing, engineering and applied science ...