It's about 230 miles from West Lafayette Ind to Columbus Oh where Intel is building their new 20B fab. I suspect that this is part of an effort to create more semi-conductor engineers to work at that plant.
Purdue is an engineering school and has an existing electrical engineering and nanotechnology departments. Indiana has a stronger biotech presence but they could support chip fabs. But like the rest of the rust belt/midwest, manufacturing has been hollowed out since the 80s.