Business

U.S. Dept of Defense To Fund Revolutionary Fibers and Textiles Institute for Manufacturing Innovation

The U.S. Department of Defense has committed US$ 75 million for an Institute for Manufacturing Innovation competition in Revolutionary Fibers and Textiles. The Department is launching a competition for leading manufacturers, universities, and non-profits to form a new manufacturing hub focused on revolutionary fibers and textile technologies. This public-private partnership is expected to generate at least 1:1 cost-share from industry, bringing more than US$ 150 million in public and private investment funds.

The Revolutionary Fibers and Textiles Institute for Manufacturing Innovation (RFT-IMI) will ensure that America leads in the manufacturing of new products from leading edge innovations in fiber science, commercializing fibers and textiles with extraordinary properties.

The RFT-IMI will serve as a public-private partnership between government, academia and industry to address the spectrum of manufacturing challenges associated with this technology, from design to end products. It is envisioned to support an end-to-end innovation ‘ecosystem’ in the U.S. for advanced fibers and textiles manufacturing and leverage domestic manufacturing facilities to develop and scale-up manufacturing processes.

This investment drives the application of smart textiles to not only revitalize the domestic textile supply chain, but also creates global export opportunities. After being the poster child for the lost decade in U.S. manufacturing in the 2000s, the American textile industry is on the rebound, growing employment for the first time in two decades, increasing shipments by nearly a fifth since the recession, and winning globally with a 45% increase in exports since 2009. This announcement builds on this turnaround in American textile manufacturing and lays the foundation for future leadership in the production of sophisticated fibers and textile technologies.