SHANGHAI - In an effort to quickly fill a skills gap made worse by American efforts to restrict Beijing's access to cutting-edge chip technology, China is stepping up efforts to cultivate domestic semiconductor talent.

Thanks to increased funding for prestigious universities and a boom in smaller, private schools with a focus on shorter-term instruction, enrollment in undergraduate and graduate programs has increased over the past five years.

A time when entry-level salaries have doubled is luring some graduates with degrees in other fields into the growing industry.

Liu Zhongfan, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told local reporters this month on the sidelines of a parliament meeting that China needs to prioritize developing talent even more than finding quick fixes to its supply-chain problems.

Students and experts, however, told the media that more modern schools in Taiwan and the US offer more practical industry experience than China's emerging chip curriculum.

More than 60% of Chinese students majoring in chip engineering graduate without having had an internship in the field, according to a 2022 survey by the Chinese research company ICWise.

According to recent graduates and academics, Chinese universities frequently reward professors across all disciplines for publishing papers rather than imparting cutting-edge methodology that is applicable in a company laboratory or chip manufacturing plant.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Taiwan's leading chip manufacturer, has established research centers at four universities.

"Taiwan has excellent school-business partnerships. Despite only spending half a year in class, a student may be enrolled in three years of postgraduate study "Wang Ziyang, a recent graduate with over 90,000 followers on Maimai, a social network akin to Linkedin, blogs about trends in chip hiring.

In China, there have been some moves in this direction. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), its largest chip foundry, announced in 2021 the establishment of a School of Integrated Circuits at Shenzhen Technology University.

According to university data, the number of master's students enrolling in chip engineering programs at 10 top universities nearly doubled between 2018 and 2022, reaching 2,893 students overall.

Recent graduates claim that the undergraduate level is mirroring the increase in students, but addressing the shortage will take consistent effort.

The average annual salary for an entry-level engineer in the industry has increased since 2018, from roughly 200,000 yuan ($28,722.43) to 400,000 yuan, according to Hu Yunwang, founder of a Shanghai-based chip recruitment agency. This illustrates the supply-demand imbalance.

With chip engineering boot camps that claim to offer a fast track and primarily target graduates who majored in a subject tangentially related to chip engineering, a number of private schools have popped up to provide a temporary solution.

A former engineer from Arm Ltd founded EeeKnow in Shanghai in 2015, offering in-person courses on topics like "Cortex-M3 MCU front-end design and verification in 60 days," for 2,000–4,000 yuan.

Abner Zheng, who earned a materials science degree from Chengdu University in 2019, said he enrolled in classes at EeeKnow after reading a blog post that advised students in his major to look into careers in chips. He currently works for a Chinese manufacturer of image-processing chips.

"If I didn't switch to chip engineering, I would probably have to find a job in a traditional manufacturing industry like cars or machinery," he said.

I have decided to take advantage of the huge wave of people who are coming to buy chips because I feel like these industries are on the decline.