UCLA Samueli launches $125M semiconductor hub

The UCLA Samueli School of Engineering has announced the creation of a Semiconductor Hub backed by a $125 million investment. The project brings together Broadcom, Applied Materials, GlobalFoundries, Meta, and Synopsys to accelerate research and skills development in semiconductor technologies for artificial intelligence. The initiative is based on an initial five-year commitment, combining funding and in-kind contributions. According to UCLA, this collaboration will span the entire semiconductor ecosystem, from chip design and software to manufacturing, equipment, and advanced materials. "UCLA is uniquely positioned to bring together interdisciplinary expertise to advance innovation in semiconductors and transform these advances into scalable solutions," said Julio Frenk, UCLA’s chancellor. The hub aims to strengthen medium- and long-term cooperation between researchers and industry to advance connectivity, computing, and intelligent systems technologies. Target research areas include real-time generative AI inference at the edge, self-optimizing data centers, and next-generation communication systems covering radio frequency, terahertz, and optical technologies. Founding partners also emphasize the importance of training the next generation of engineers as semiconductor complexity increases and AI development accelerates