Photo: VCG

China has established a new university specializing in the chip industry in East China's Jiangsu Province amid increasing demand for talent in the chip industry.

Nanjing Integrated Circuit University was inaugurated in Jiangbei New Area of Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province on Thursday, the first university in the country to focus on the integrated circuit industry and aimed at cultivating high-quality professionals in the industry.

The university will include five institutes, of which The Institute of Integrated Circuit Future Technology will focus on the revolutionary and disruptive cutting-edge technologies of integrated circuits such as AI, 5G/6G, quantum computing, Internet-connected vehicles, and third-generation semiconductors.

The university is expected to be an important supplement to China's university education system and an important source of talent for enterprises.

Unlike traditional universities, the Nanjing Integrated Circuit University was not organized by the Ministry of Education or the provincial and municipal education authorities, but by the Nanjing Jiangbei New District Management Committee, based on the needs of local industry development. 

The students will not be selected from high school graduates with college entrance examinations, but from students who already have basic professional knowledge in colleges and universities and who have an interest in working on integrated circuits, as well as junior employees in companies.

The teachers will be senior engineers from companies and domestic and foreign industry experts. 

The courses will be designed in accordance with the job descriptions required by enterprises and will be taught in a personalized manner targeting the weaknesses of the students.

Having such a university will greatly help the chip industry to accumulate talent as China advances in 5G technology and the chip industry, Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Beijing-based Information Consumption Alliance told the Global Times on Thursday.

According to the "White Paper on Talent in China's Integrated Circuit Industry (2018-2019)" it is estimated that there will still be a gap of 261,000 employees in China's integrated circuit industry in 2021. 

The university is expected to attract more than 30,000 students in the integrated circuit industry and expand the total industrial chain volume to more than 300 billion yuan ($45 billion) by 2025.