TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A global rush to build self-sufficient semiconductor supply chains could dramatically worsen the industry’s talent shortage, TSMC veteran engineer Lin Pen-chien (林本堅) warned Tuesday.

Lin, also the dean of National Tsing Hua University’s College of Semiconductor Research, said Taiwan faces challenges in training chip talent, per CNA. Many students enter industry after completing a master’s degree, he said, leaving too small a pool of doctoral students and future faculty, per Liberty Times.

Lin argued that without academics to train engineers and researchers, Taiwan risks weakening its foundation. Talent cultivation, he stressed, is as critical as investment or manufacturing capacity.

TSMC’s global leadership, Lin said, rests on its scale, which allows sustained investment in leading-edge processes and fab expansion. Splitting resources too thinly would erode that advantage, he warned.

Turning to global trends, Lin said geopolitical pressures are pushing countries to pursue vertically integrated semiconductor supply chains. If two countries attempt to replicate complete ecosystems, resources are effectively halved, he said.

Should three or four countries do so simultaneously, Lin warned, the resulting global talent shortfall could expand by as much as fifteenfold. He said such fragmentation would ultimately hurt the industry worldwide rather than strengthen it.