TAIPEI (Reuters) -Dressed in a white protective suit and face mask, Nicolas Chueh listened intently as a guide introduced a series of silver machines used in manufacturing Taiwan's cutting-edge semiconductors.
The 16-year-old was among students from eight countries at the summer camp staged to raise interest in Taiwan's most vital industry amid a fast-declining birth rate that could leave tens of thousands of critical jobs vacant.
"I myself really enjoy playing video games. So I'm really just always using these semiconductor products," said Chueh, whose parents enrolled him after he expressed interest.
The camp, organised by U.S. chip design software firm Synopsys, is among several such events staged by chip companies and Taiwanese universities in recent years as demand for semiconductors, which power most electronics and AI servers, surges across the globe.
But for the first time this year, Synopsys, which has significant operations in Taiwan to be closer to the semiconductor supply chain, hosted the events both in Mandarin and English as Taiwan searches for overseas talent.
"There is an urgent need to strengthen STEM education from an early age," said Robert Li, Synopsys's Taiwan chairman, who believes the camps can increase interest in the chip industry and help prime some of its future leaders.
"That is why we are launching this initiative in Taiwan, where its strength in semiconductors meets the challenge of demographic decline. Taken together, it is clear we must act here first."
Given limitations posed by Taiwan's ageing population, Synopsys is also considering hosting camps internationally to spur interest in chip making and designing, he added. The company charges T$33,000 ($1,103) for the English versions and T$10,900 for Mandarin.
Chueh, a dual Taiwan-Belgian national who lives in Singapore, said he views semiconductors as an attractive career choice.
"I want to lean into it to some extent because I think it will be crucial in the future with AI."
SLUMPING BIRTH RATE
Taiwan, which has a population of around 23 million, holds outsized influence over the global semiconductor supply chain, thanks to its chip companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world's largest contract chipmaker, MediaTek, and UMC.
Any decline in the industry poses an existential threat to Taiwan, which faces the threat of invasion from Beijing and draws much of its global significance from the chip behemoths.
But job openings in the semiconductor sector have risen from 19,401 in the second quarter of 2020 to 33,725 in the same period this year, according to 104 Corporation, a local human resources firm.
The industry is grappling with a shortage of both highly skilled professionals, such as IC design and semiconductor R&D engineers, and essential production staff, including operators and assembly technicians.
Filling those jobs locally is becoming harder each year as Taiwan's annual number of births has dropped from over 210,000 in 2014 to around 135,000 in 2024, according to government statistics. STEM graduates have also fallen by around 15% in that period, Ministry of Education statistics showed.
"Growth in Taiwan's semiconductor industry has been quite rapid, faster than what our schools can produce in terms of engineering talent each year," said Leuh Fang, chairman of Vanguard International Semiconductor, a Taiwan-based chipmaker affiliated with TSMC.
'THE FUTURE WORKFORCE'
Last year, the National Taiwan University launched a global undergraduate semiconductor program for foreign students, which included Mandarin courses to help them reach the proficiency needed to stay and work in Taiwan.
The program now enrolls over 40 students from more than 10 countries.
TSMC also began looking toward foreign talent by throwing its weight behind a program in Germany’s Saxony state, which would send German students to study for a semester at Taiwanese universities before interning at TSMC.
Other initiatives are attempting to create interest among children as young as 10.
Taiwan's National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) launched an outreach program in July, backed by TSMC, aimed at making chip science fun through interactive teaching tools and online games.
"The issue everyone is discussing now is where the future workforce will come from," said NYCU President Chi-Hung Lin.
"If they're curious now, they won't reject it later and some may even grow to like this kind of work."