Federal Announcements

The Commerce Department released the notice of funding opportunity laying out the guardrails for companies applying to make major investments in the semiconductor industry in America, including a novel requirement that recipients craft a program tailored to the location to provide child care for all of their workers.

The Biden-Harris Administration announced new actions to grow American competitiveness, expand manufacturing jobs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the industrial sector. Further strengthening our industrial base will revitalize local economies, lower costs for consumers, provide more pathways to the middle class through good-paying union jobs, and boost American competitiveness in global markets.

President Joe Biden signed a presidential waiver of some statutory requirements (Waiver) authorizing the use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to allow the Department of Defense DoD to more aggressively build the resiliency of America's defense industrial base and secure its supply chains.

A team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Michigan devised a cybersecurity framework that brings digital twin technology together with machine learning and human expertise to flag indicators of cyberattacks. In a paper published in IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, the researchers showed the feasibility of their strategy by detecting cyberattacks aimed at a 3D printer in their lab.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced a $30 million funding opportunity to advance the cost-effective domestic manufacturing of materials, including lightweight composites, that allow wind turbines to produce power more efficiently.

The U.S. National Science Foundation announced a cross-sector partnership with Ericsson, IBM, Intel, and Samsung to support the design of the next generation of semiconductors as part of its Future of Semiconductors (FuSe) initiative. Through this partnership activity, NSF will team with Ericsson, IBM, Intel, and Samsung to invest in projects that cultivate a broad coalition of science and engineering researchers to pursue holistic, “co-design” approaches.