Leading chipmaking engineer Xu Zhenpeng leaves US for Chinese university

Xu said on social media in January that he has joined Shanghai Jiao Tong University as a tenure-track assistant professor. The university ranks third in China in the 2026 CSRankings for AI.

Explaining his decision, Xu said he was drawn by the school’s strong reputation in manufacturing research and its close links with industry, which he believes will support the development of his own research program.

"In my previous role in the semiconductor sector in the U.S., increasingly strict policies and corporate compliance requirements limited my international mobility, which became a constraint on sustained research development," Xu told the South China Morning Post. "Meanwhile, China’s advanced manufacturing research ecosystem is evolving rapidly."

Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Photo from Instagram

Before returning to China, Xu led a team at California-based manufacturing start-up Atomic Semi, where he developed 3D printing techniques aimed at making chip production faster and cheaper than conventional methods that rely on bulky, multimillion-dollar machines.

Founded in 2023, the company has attracted investment from OpenAI, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and crypto investment firm Paradigm co-founder Fred Ehrsam, according to reports.

Xu earned his PhD from University of California, Los Angeles in 2023 and is regarded as a rising talent in large-area, micron-precision 3D printing, a technology increasingly applied in electronics manufacturing.

According to his faculty profile at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Xu was a key contributor during his doctoral studies to U.S. Department of Energy and National Science Foundation projects focused on ultra-lightweight materials and advanced multi-material 3D printing.

As a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley, he developed high-speed 3D printing methods for producing tiny components that could glow, bend, or respond to touch.