The next hot spot for job growth could be none other than South Bend, Indiana.

That was one of the potential benefits of an announcement Tuesday at the University of Notre Dame.

The school has an ambitious new mission. It will be at the forefront in the search for the next ‘big thing.’

Notre Dame has $60 million plans to open the Midwest Academy for Nanoelectronics and Architectures, or MANA.

Notre Dame will lead a research consortium that will try to invent a new “switch” to replace the transistor in the next generation of computers.

“A few year ago, it was recognized that within the next ten to fifteen years, we'd no longer be able to shrink the devices, but would instead need to find an entirely new device to continue the pace of technology advancement,” said Jeff Welser with the Semiconductor Research Corporation.

“It was recognized that the country that found this new switch first, would likely dominate the coming nanoelectronics era, the same way the U.S. has dominated the micro electronics era of the past 50-or so years,” Welser concluded.

The consortium also includes Purdue University, The University of Illinois, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Michigan, Argonne National Laboratory, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.

Notre Dame will invest about $40 million dollars in the new center and the State of Indiana will provide some $15 million. Private sector industry will invest five million dollars in the project, while the City of South Bend will contribute one million.

If history repeats itself, South Bend could become a hot spot for employment growth. “This will provide jobs, provide investment for generations and generations to come,” said U.S. Rep. Joseph Donnelly, (D) Indiana’s 2nd District.

“I don't think it’s being too bold to say in our beloved city's history this may be the biggest development industry wide, since the arrival of the Studebaker family.”

Donnelly’s optimism was based on what happened in Albany, New York when a similar research center was established there. A private company announced plans to site a $3.8 billion circuit manufacturing center near the site, as suppliers and partners flocked to the area brings more than 1,000 new jobs.

Governor Mitch Daniels agreed: “The potential here is really boundless. We’re thrilled when Cummins, or Honda, or Toyota, or Nestle builds a great big plant in our state and we can see it getting bigger, but this could lead to something bigger than all of them put together, it has no upper limit cause of the value the technology would add to the world.”