The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is establishing an education, training, and research center for AI chip design. "Here, students and researchers will learn how AI chips are designed and developed using advanced technologies," says Hussam Amrouch, head of the center and professor of AI processor design. The key partner is TSMC, the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer. The Bavarian state government is supporting the center with 4.475 million euros.
Andreas Heddergott / TUM Over the next five years, more than 300 TUM students and researchers from the fields of engineering and computer science will learn how to design and develop AI chips. That is the goal Prof. Amrouch has set for his new education, training, and research center for AI chip design. The Munich Advanced Technology Center for High-Tech Chips, or MACHT-AI for short, will offer its first workshops in the spring of next year.
"The professional suitability of the participants is important to us. However, it must be clear to everyone that they also bear an enormous responsibility because our goal is to create new solutions for the market," says Prof. Amrouch. Currently, a few researchers from Amrouch's Chair of AI Processor Design are developing content for future workshops. However, Amrouch, the head of MACHT-AI who recently had his first neuromorphic AI chip produced, expects high demand. Additionally, plans are in place to allow students and researchers from other Bavarian universities to apply for future workshops.
Making Germany more economically independent with AI chip expertise
With this training initiative, TUM professor Amrouch is pursuing the goal of making Bavaria and Germany more economically independent from the US and China: "This can only succeed if we create production capacities on the one hand and, on the other hand, build up the knowledge necessary to build modern AI chips ourselves." While a new TSMC semiconductor plant (European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company - ESMC) is currently being built in Dresden, with 10 billion euros in support from the German government and the EU, the Bavarian state government is investing in the knowledge needed to develop and build chips.
"As an entrepreneurship university, we should not only think about the future but also create the conditions for ideas to ultimately become products," says Amrouch - products that are made locally, "chips made in Germany."
Facts about the Munich Advanced Technology Center for High-Tech Chips training, education, and research center:
- Main objectives:
(1) Training students and researchers in TSMC's advanced FinFET technology
(2) Developing highly efficient AI chips and demonstrating them using TSMC's 16 nm and 7 nm technologies.
- Start: Summer semester 2026
- Number of participants: 2 to 3 workshops with 25 students/researchers each
- Director: Prof. Hussam Amrouch
- Funding: 4.475 million euros from the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts and the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs
