Phil and Penny Knight announced a $1 billion gift Wednesday, Sept. 23, to create the University of Oregon's Knight College of Engineering.

The new college targets a gap that matters in Hillsboro. Oregon's semiconductor workforce sits at a 30-year low after waves of layoffs at Intel and other chipmakers, according to The Oregonian. Intel still employs about 16,000 workers at its Washington County campuses, down from 23,000 as recently as 2024.

The gift is the largest known donation to a public flagship university, KOIN reported. It will fund new faculty, facilities and scholarships at the Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact in Eugene, which the couple created through two earlier gifts totaling $1 billion in 2016 and 2021. Wednesday's commitment brings their total investment in the campus to $2 billion, OPB reported.

"Oregon has the companies, the workforce and the research," said Renée James, a University of Oregon trustee and former Intel president. "What it has not had is a pipeline big enough to feed all three."

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in a statement that the company has been part of the community for more than five decades and understands the importance of strong engineering talent.

Robert Guldberg, vice president of UO and executive director of the Knight Campus, told OPB the gift will more than double the number of faculty and students at the campus. The university hopes to build a new engineering facility within the next couple of years, he said. The Knight College of Engineering will focus on bioengineering and other high-demand disciplines.

The gift arrives as UO faces a $65 million budget shortfall. Classified employees at Oregon's seven public universities voted to authorize a strike that could begin as early as Monday, Sept. 28.

Oregon expects about 2,500 engineering job openings a year, but employers say those positions are among the hardest to fill, according to UO officials. UO projects the investment will support an average of 867 jobs per year over 15 years, generate $1.2 billion in cumulative labor income for Oregon workers and return about $119 million in state and local taxes.

The new college could challenge Oregon State University, which already works closely with Intel and leads much of the state's engineering research. OSU will soon open a $200 million supercomputer research center partly funded by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and his wife, Lori. Portland State University also runs an engineering program tied to Silicon Forest employers.

Phil Knight, 88, ran track at UO and founded Nike with his former coach Bill Bowerman in 1964. Forbes values the Knights' fortune at $25 billion and estimated their charitable giving totaled $4.5 billion before Wednesday's announcement. The couple donated $1.1 billion to Providence St. Vincent Medical Center on Sept. 15 and gave $2 billion to Oregon Health & Science University in 2025.

In July, a consortium led by OSU won a federal grant worth up to $160 million from the National Science Foundation to boost Oregon's semiconductor research.