New UC Berkeley Center to Address American Competitiveness in Advanced Technology

New UC Berkeley Center to Address American Competitiveness in Advanced Technology

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To ensure American technology competitiveness in the long term, Mark Liu, former executive chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), is establishing an academic center at the University of California, Berkeley. The Technology Competitiveness and Industrial Policy Center (TCIP), founded and supported by Liu, aims to usher in a new age of advanced technology development and production in the United States.

TCIP will provide expert, independent scholarly advice to policymakers and lawmakers on technology policy development to ensure global leadership in technology research and development (R&D), as well as advanced manufacturing, critical for sustained economic prosperity, national security, and societal well-being.

“Over the past several decades, globalization has decoupled upstream research from downstream manufacturing of high-technology products,” says Liu. “As a result, new innovations do not necessarily translate into domestic commercialization and attendant wealth creation. With the ever-increasing dependence of society on technology, this separation is eroding our nation’s technology leadership, the cornerstone of economic power and national security.”

“A national strategy is needed to strengthen the pipeline from research to product development and manufacturing, and to ensure end-market access,” Liu says.

S. Shankar Sastry, Thomas M. Siebel Professor in Computer Science at UC Berkeley, will serve as Faculty Director of the new center. “In the wake of the recent disruption we’ve seen from China’s introduction of DeepSeek,” says Sastry, “it becomes increasingly imperative to restore U.S. leadership in advanced technology -- including AI -- and this center will accelerate progress toward this goal.”

The new center, under the auspices of the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley, will engage and convene experts in technology, economics, and policy from across academia, industry, and non-profit organizations. Center leadership will be advised by a distinguished group of thought leaders from industry and academia.

“We are honored to have such a titan of industry create this center at UC Berkeley to ensure advanced technology leadership in the U.S.,” says Tsu-Jae King Liu, Dean and Roy W. Carlson Professor of Engineering.

The center will launch with a convening on February 13 at UC Berkeley featuring plenary talks, panels, and discussion with leaders from academia, industry, and think tanks across the country.