Pakistan has completed the institutional setup of its three regional Semiconductor Education and Research Clusters (SERCs) after NED University of Engineering and Technology was named lead university for the South Region. The agreement was signed between Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) and NED University in Karachi on August 28, 2026, and formally announced the next day. Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja witnessed the signing and described it as an important step in the country’s journey toward building a globally competitive semiconductor ecosystem. NED University now joins the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), which leads the North Region, and ESUPAK at the University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Lahore, which leads the Central Region. With this contract in place, all institutional agreements under the National Semiconductor Human Resource Development Program, known as INSPIRE, have been finalised, giving the country a university led network that covers Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.
INSPIRE, which stands for Initiative to Nurture Semiconductor Professionals for Industry, Research and Education, is a five year program backed by a government allocation of Rs 4.844 billion and run by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT) through PSEB. Its main purpose is to build the skilled workforce that Pakistan needs to take part in the global semiconductor value chain. Rather than investing in costly chip fabrication plants, the program directs public funds and university laboratories toward fabless integrated circuit design, verification and silicon prototyping, an area where much of the industry’s value is created. The open source RISC-V instruction set architecture is central to this approach because it allows engineers to design processors without paying proprietary licensing fees, and such processors can be applied in areas including edge artificial intelligence, internet of things sensing and cryptographic hardware.
Human resource development sits at the heart of the program. The national target is to train 7,200 integrated circuit engineers by 2030, with the three clusters teaching undergraduate and graduate students while specialised upskilling programs offer practicing electrical, electronic and computer engineers intensive six month training in areas such as SystemVerilog, Universal Verification Methodology and physical design. Global demand for physical design and verification engineers continues to exceed supply, and Pakistan hopes to fill part of that gap with graduates who can work for international chip companies or start design ventures at home. During the ceremony, NED University’s Pro Vice Chancellor Noman Ahmed spoke about the institution’s commitment to semiconductor education, research and closer cooperation between universities and industry, and through SERC South the university aims to advance research, innovation and Pakistan’s participation in the global semiconductor value chain.
With the three clusters now formally established, INSPIRE moves from the agreement stage into full implementation. Each university will work on its own technical priorities while sharing the common goal of producing engineers who can design and verify chips that are ready for manufacture at partner foundries abroad. If the training targets are met, the program could help shift part of Pakistan’s technology exports from outsourced software services toward higher value hardware design work, and it gives students in the north, centre and south of the country access to the same national semiconductor curriculum.
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