Rising star chip scientist Jiang Jianfeng leaves MIT for China’s Peking University

Most academics take eight to 10 years after earning a PhD to become doctoral supervisors. But semiconductor scientist Jiang Jianfeng has done it in just 18 months. The 30-year-old only earned his PhD in June 2024. After briefly serving as a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he has now returned to Peking University to serve as a principal investigator, associate professor and PhD supervisor. Jiang’s research focuses on two-dimensional indium selenide (InSe). This material challenges the existing “silicon-based hegemony” and could help China leap ahead in the chip sector. “Since my undergraduate graduation project, I have been engaged in InSe semiconductor research,” Jiang said in a July 2025 interview with DeepTech, a well-known Chinese affiliate of MIT Technology Review. “From Shandong University to Peking University and then to MIT – it has been nine years in a flash.” Jiang earned his master’s from Shandong University in 2020, receiving its President’s Award, and his PhD from Peking University in 2024, where he was awarded its highest honour – the May Fourth Medal. Traditional silicon-based chips are constrained by physical limits and struggle to meet the performance demands of advanced 3-nanometre and sub-3nm nodes. By contrast, low-dimensional materials like InSe, with their atomic thickness and quantum effects, are seen as a key path to overcoming the “Moore’s Law” bottleneck. Simply put, Moore’s Law describes the steady doubling of chip performance alongside falling prices. But physical limits eventually make this untenable. Jiang’s research shows that his two-dimensional InSe outperforms Intel’s 3nm node technology across all core performance metrics, while achieving an internationally leading energy efficiency ratio. “Two-dimensional semiconductor InSe has its advantages, but transitioning from laboratory research to true industrialisation is, in my opinion, more likely to be a 10-year technological evolution process,” he said in an interview. Previously, Jiang described two-dimensional semiconductors as being “like a puzzle that can be redefined”. “They not only possess almost all the functions of silicon but can surpass it in energy efficiency. Future chips may be smaller, faster and more energy-efficient – key drivers for advancing information technology,” he told DeepTech. On July 17 last year, Jiang published a paper in Science reporting a breakthrough in integrated InSe semiconductor manufacturing. He was listed as the corresponding and co-first author. The study advanced InSe devices from “single device” demonstrations to a “wafer-level platform”, enabling large-scale, integrable 2D electronics and opening new pathways for post-Moore chip technology. This research not only advanced the manufacturability and system integration of ultra-high-performance 2D devices but also attracted significant industry attention, leading to two invited presentations at Intel and the Semiconductor Research Corporation in the US. In papers published in Nature in 2023 and 2025, Jiang became the first to demonstrate in a lab that a single InSe device could outperform traditional silicon in energy efficiency – work that laid the groundwork for his later wafer-level breakthrough. As early as October last year – before he returned to China – Peking University announced on its official website that Jiang was recruiting doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers. The notice said that his research group aligned with national strategic needs in artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and autonomous driving. It added that the new lab group would focus on advanced low-dimensional semiconductor electronics to address fundamental scientific and engineering bottlenecks in 3D integrated devices and circuit architectures, powering next-generation chips with ultra-high energy efficiency. “For me, the decision to return to my home country is not a momentary impulse, but rather a more natural choice,” Jiang said. “To truly advance these new materials and devices closer to industrial application, a relatively stable and long-term research team is required. “Peking University has accumulated decades of research foundation in the field of low-dimensional electronics, so returning to Peking University to form my own team is an opportunity for me to conduct research systematically and sustainably,” he added. “When making career choices, I also ask myself a question: if my research can play a small role in a direction that the country truly needs, it may be more meaningful than merely engaging in academia. “To some extent, this is also an important reason why I ultimately chose to return to Peking University to continue my research.” In a previous interview with China Science Communication, Jiang explained his decision to return after only 1½ years abroad: “Professor Peng Lianmao once said, ‘One should take root where the country needs strengthening and rise when the times demand it.’” Peng, Jiang’s PhD adviser at Peking University, is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and dean of the School of Electronics. The quote comes from a May 2023 event at PKU. Earlier in that session, Peng said: “China’s chips have made great progress, moving from following to surpassing. “In the next decade, we hope to solve the bottleneck problem, enabling everyone to use chips independently developed in China.”

Rising star chip scientist Jiang Jianfeng leaves MIT for China’s Peking University

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Jiang returns to China to advance information technology by creating smaller, faster and more energy-efficient computer chips

Jiang returns to China to advance information technology by creating smaller, faster and more energy-efficient computer chips