Gwangju: South Korea and the British semiconductor design company Arm have inaugurated a new training center in the southwestern city of Gwangju to foster the development of semiconductor design specialists, as announced by the industry ministry.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST)-Arm School was established following a meeting in Seoul last December between President Lee Jae Myung, Arm CEO Rene Haas, and Masayoshi Son, founder and CEO of Japanese technology investment giant SoftBank Group, which owns Arm Holdings. This center aims to become a regional hub for cultivating semiconductor design talent, as stated by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources.

The school will offer a specialized graduate program for master's and doctoral students, alongside a semiconductor academy designed for undergraduate students, job seekers, and industry workers. It is set to train 1,400 semiconductor specialists over the next five years, beginning in the latter half of this year.

Lee Min-woo, a senior ministry official, emphasized the collaborative nature of the GIST-Arm School, which involves both a local university and a leading global computing platform company. The initiative is expected to become a successful model for semiconductor talent development and aims to create a talent-development ecosystem centered in the region.

The school is anticipated to significantly contribute to revitalizing the regional semiconductor industry ecosystem. This aligns with the Lee administration's ambitious "three mega projects" initiative, which focuses on semiconductors and artificial intelligence (AI), primarily situated in South Korea's southern region.