The University of Chicago is set to receive a $3 million grant to expand domestic semiconductor and chip manufacturing as President Donald Trump tries to onshore production to the U.S. through heavy tariffs.
The grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation will go toward “spearheading the next generation of semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S.” at the NSF ACE-3D Chip Design Hub, according to a news release from the university.
UChicago and Fermilab scientists will staff the operation, which aims to connect undergrads, doctoral students, postdocs and professors designing chips and domestic manufacturers in the hopes of furthering the technology and “propel manufacturing efforts across the country.”
The money will also go toward expanding education on chip production from high school to advanced-degree levels, while also designing curricula to be shared for education around the country, according to federal grant documents.
“Here in the United States, we have very good chip design innovation, but it is not connected to the domestic manufacturing ecosystem,” said Farah Fahim, a CASE senior scientist at the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, in a statement. “Manufacturing will thrive because chip design training will be more accessible and research will thrive because there will be a community supporting this important effort.”
It’s a change of fortune for the university, which previously lost NSF grants along with other schools like Chicago State University. It has been among many in higher education to scale back programs. The school announced it would pause admissions for nearly half of its doctoral programs next year, as reported by the Chicago Maroon. Late last month, Northwestern University announced it was cutting 425 positions.
The announcement comes just weeks after Trump said he would impose a 100% tariff on computer chips, raising the specter of higher prices for electronics, autos, household appliances and other essential products while trying to spur more domestic production.
The U.S. imports a relatively small number of chips because most of the foreign-made chips in a device — from an iPhone to a car — were already integrated into a product, or part of a product, before it landed in the country.
Trump has been betting that the threat of dramatically higher chip costs would force most companies to open factories domestically, despite the risk that tariffs could push up prices.
By contrast, the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act that President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022 provided more than $50 billion to support new computer chip plants, fund research and train workers for the industry. The mix of funding support, tax credits and other financial incentives was meant to draw in private investment, a strategy that Trump has vocally opposed.
However, Bloomberg reported Monday that the White House was considering taking a 10% stake in Intel — which would make it the majority stakeholder in the chip maker. The proposal includes an option where money given to the company through the CHIPS Act would be converted to equity. This was after Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas accused the company’s CEO of having ties to the Chinese Communist Party and Trump called for his resignation before turning around to praise him ahead of the potential deal.
“We’ll be putting a tariff of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors,” Trump said in the Oval Office this month. “But if you’re building in the United States of America, there’s no charge.”
Contributing: AP