manpower are now being brain drained to china
China Attracts South Korea’s Top National Scholars, Building Research Institutes for Them – JoongAng Ilbo
Some of South Korea’s most prominent national scholars have moved to Chinese universities. They are globally recognized authorities in basic research fields critical to advanced technologies such as semiconductors, batteries, and quantum science, where global competition is fierce. While China, locked in a tech supremacy race with the U.S., accelerates its R&D by attracting Korea’s top scholars, South Korea shows neither the will nor the strategy to retain its talent.
According to industry and academic sources on the 23rd, Lee Young-hee, an HCR distinguished professor at Sungkyunkwan University and a world authority on carbon nanotubes (CNTs)—critical for next-generation semiconductor and battery technology—has been appointed at Hubei University of Technology in China, where he is leading semiconductor and quantum research institutes. After retiring from the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) where he served as director of the Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics, Professor Lee was unable to find a stable research position in Korea and thus chose to move to China.
Prior to this, in 2023, theoretical physicist Lee Ki-myung, former vice president of the Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS), also moved to China after retirement, becoming a professor at the Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (BIMSA). Professors Lee Young-hee and Lee Ki-myung were selected as Korea’s first and second National Scholars in 2005 and 2006 respectively by the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea but could not secure positions domestically. In contrast, China is pushing aggressively to recruit science and engineering scholars globally, with each province’s universities leading the efforts to boost "R&D rise."
Pushed Out After Retirement in Korea, Immediately Recruited by China
The IBS research center led by Professor Lee since 2012 achieved significant results in CNTs, graphene, water-splitting catalysts, and two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor research. Professor Lee had been among the world’s top 1% most-cited researchers since 2018. However, with his mandatory retirement at the end of 2023, the center was disbanded. According to IBS regulations, a center director must be a "full-time professor at a domestic university," and the center automatically terminates upon the director’s retirement. About 20 researchers scattered to domestic and international universities and research institutions. Professor Lee continued his research as a distinguished (non-tenured) professor at Sungkyunkwan University, but this contract also ends in August.
Professor Lee reportedly submitted research project proposals to the Ministry of Science and ICT, trying to continue his work in Korea, but was unsuccessful. He declined to comment when contacted by JoongAng Ilbo.
After recruiting Professor Lee, Hubei University of Technology established a 16,000㎡ (about 4,850 pyeong) Low-dimensional Quantum Materials (LQM) Research Institute. The university is now recruiting researchers, offering a package including "a world-renowned research team led by Professor Lee, state-of-the-art research equipment, a salary of 260,000 yuan (around 50 million KRW), plus separate funding for living and entrepreneurship." Research areas include 2D semiconductors and solar cells.
China's Surging Engineering Talent Amid U.S. Sanctions
China’s enthusiasm for R&D, such as building research institutes to recruit Korean scholars, is nothing new. In 2021, the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported that "while most countries focus on controlling the leakage of applied technologies, China prioritizes attracting overseas talents in basic sciences," analyzing China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025).
In January this year, Chinese researchers made headlines by publishing a paper proposing an algorithm that could theoretically speed up NVIDIA’s old GPU chips by 800 times—meaning that even gaming GPUs could solve complex problems in aerospace and defense. What amazed the academic community even more was that the research came from the newly established "Shenzhen MSU-BIT University," a Sino-Russian joint university founded by Moscow State University and Beijing Institute of Technology in 2017 in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. Professors from Moscow State University teach courses, and students learn Russian as well. Generous scholarships funded by Shenzhen city and salaries two to three times the national average attract faculty. Professor Kim Jung-geun, an MSU-BIT faculty member and Moscow State University graduate, told JoongAng Ilbo, "China is rapidly absorbing Russia’s excellent basic science education."
Shenzhen, often called "China’s Silicon Valley," has in the past decade established campuses or research institutes of Hong Kong Chinese University (2014), Harbin Institute of Technology (2016), Sun Yat-sen University (2020), Tsinghua-UC Berkeley Shenzhen Institute (2014), and Georgia Tech Tianjin University Shenzhen Institute (2020). Graduates are absorbed by companies like Huawei.
On April 15, the Trump administration banned exports of NVIDIA’s low-end H20 GPUs to China, but it was NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang who scrambled to react. Chinese semiconductor companies like Huawei and Cambricon are posing growing threats. Although the U.S. is blocking exports of advanced GPUs and equipment, China’s engineering workforce is countering the sanctions through innovations in design, materials, and algorithms.
"How Much If You Bring Your Entire Lab?" — China Circulating Salary Charts to Korean Professors
China’s R&D ambitions even threaten Korea’s dominance in memory semiconductors. Last month, a Chinese state media report claiming that Samsung Electronics uses bonding patents from Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC) caused a stir.
However, industry and academic experts in Korea said it was "not surprising." A domestic memory company researcher commented, "YMTC was the first to apply bonding technology in mass production among memory makers. Their R&D speed is frightening because they have so many Ph.D.-level engineers."
A Seoul National University engineering professor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, "At Chinese companies, R&D is like human wave tactics—if someone falls, another takes over immediately—there’s simply no way to compete."
Recently, "offers from China" have become a hot topic among Korean engineering professors. Professors specializing in electrical engineering, materials science, design, and especially those holding semiconductor-related patents are receiving love calls from Chinese universities.
One engineering professor from Seoul told JoongAng Ilbo, "They present packages like a travel agency—'XX province university offers X amount for salary and research funds, and if you bring your entire lab, Y amount,'" and added, "Although I declined further talks due to national research project commitments, I was tempted by the lavish research environment."
Korea’s semiconductor workforce development policy merely focuses on increasing the number of undergraduates in contract departments. A KAIST professor who teaches in a semiconductor contract program said, "Trying to train semiconductor talent at the undergraduate level is nonsense." Four years of undergraduate education is barely enough to build fundamental mathematics and engineering skills, and limited faculty capacity in contract programs makes it difficult to offer quality curricula. Professor Lee Hee-deok of Chungnam National University emphasized, "We need to expand semiconductor research personnel at the master’s degree level to truly support the industry."
https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/25330934
