Purdue University is ramping up what it calls the first “comprehensive” degree program in the U.S. in semiconductor engineering as America aims to rebuild its chip industry.

In order to satisfy the increased demands that we see with perhaps 13 new fabs being built in the U.S. over the next five years or so, we see a demand for something like 50,000 new semiconductor engineers,” Mark Lundstrom, a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University, told EE Times. “That’s more than double the number of semiconductor engineers that U.S. universities are currently producing.

Intel, Samsung, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. are leading the chip industry with investments worth tens of billions of dollars in fab projects around the world in anticipation of soaring demand. That means semiconductor engineers will be in scarce supply not just in the U.S., but in the rest of the world as well.

Read more in this EEtimes article.