U.S. Announces $1.5 Billion for Chip Facilities in New York and Vermont

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The U.S. Department of Commerce will provide $1.5 billion to build and expand GlobalFoundries semiconductor facilities in New York and Vermont.

The funding is part of a continuing effort to on-shore semiconductor manufacturing capacity to the United States and reduce reliance on China. It is third award under the semiconductor incentives program established by Congress in 2022 through the CHIPS and Science Act with previous awards going to modernize and expand facilities in Colorado, Oregon and New Hampshire.

According to press statements by DoC and GF, the funds would help secure the supply chain for critical automotive semiconductors, as well as establish new leading-edge manufacturing capacity that is currently only located overseas.

The award will support creation of a new funding new state-of-the-art 300 mm fabrication facility at the GF at Malta, New York and expand and modernize existing GF manufacturing sites in New York and Vermont, which produce essential automotive, communications, and defense semiconductor technologies. This expansion will also bolster the supply chain for General Motors with whom GF entered into a strategic long-term supply agreement last year.

The proposed projects would create approximately 1,500 manufacturing jobs and approximately 9,000 construction jobs over the next 10 years. In addition, the Department will also make an additional $1.6 billion in loans available to GF, with the combined potential public and private investment totaling approximately $12.5 billion.  

Chinese-Made Drones a Threat to U.S. Critical Infrastructure: CISA, FBI

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The use of Chinese-manufactured UAS in critical infrastructure operations risks
exposing sensitive information to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government, jeopardizing U.S. national security, economic security, and public health and safety, according to a new report issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The agencies note that Chinese-made drones are of particular concern since the PRC has enacted laws that provide the government with expanded legal grounds for accessing and controlling data held by firms in China. The report provides UAS cybersecurity guidance and urges provides critical infrastructure owners and operators to procure UAS that follow secure-by design principles, including those manufactured by U.S. companies.

NSF Announces New Awards to Fuel Translational Research

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ART -- Accelerating Research Translation

18 awards totaling more than $100 million will to enable academic institutions to accelerate the pace and scale of translational research leading to real-world solutions.

Authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act, the the Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program addresses a long-standing gap between academic research and the need for practical products, services and solutions. Each ART awardee will receive up to $6 million over four years to identify and build upon academic research with the potential for technology transfer and societal and economic impacts, to ensure availability of staff with technology transfer expertise and to support the education and training of entrepreneurial faculty and students. Each ART awardee institution will benefit from having a partnership with a mentoring institution of higher education (IHE) that already has a robust ecosystem for translational research. A strong partnership between the awardee institution and a mentoring institution with an established translational research ecosystem is one of the unique features of the ART program. At least 15 universities are among the partner mentoring institutions that are part of the ART network formed by this cohort of awardees which include nine projects from EPSCoR states.

“NSF endeavors to empower academic institutions to build the pathways and structures needed to speed and scale their research into products and services that benefit the nation,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “The Accelerating Research Translation program in NSF’s new Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate identifies and champions institutions positioned to expand their research translation capacity by investing in activities essential to move results to practice.”

ART awardees

The awardees are listed in alphabetical order by the institution name below. The full award list can be found on NSF’s website.

The ART program addresses a long-standing gap between academic research and the need for practical products, services and solutions. While ART seeks to build capacity and infrastructure for translational research at U.S. IHEs, the program also aims to enhance the role of IHEs in regional innovation ecosystems and effectively train graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in translational research, benefiting them across a range of career options.

OMB seeks public input on a draft AI policy

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The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is seeking public comment on a draft memorandum titled Advancing Governance, Innovation, and Risk Management for Agency Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).  According to the Biden Administration, the draft policy would “empower Federal agencies to leverage AI to improve government services and more equitably serve the American people.” The memorandum would establish new agency requirements in areas of AI governance, innovation, and risk management, and would direct agencies to adopt specific minimum risk management practices for uses of AI that impact the rights and safety of the public.

NSF announces $45 million for joint university-industry semiconductor research

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On September 18th, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $45.6 million for 24 semiconductor projects under the NSF Future of Semiconductors (FuSe) program, part of NSF’s CHIPS and Science Act research and education efforts.

According to a press release by NSF, the new funding will support 24 research and education projects through 61 awards to 47 institutions, including eight to minority-serving institutions and seven to NSF Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) jurisdictions, and addresses three research topics:

Collaborative Research in Domain-Specific Computing

Advanced Function and High Performance by Heterogeneous Integration

New Materials for Energy Efficient, Enhanced-Performance and Sustainable Semiconductor-Based Systems

The FuSe program is a funded in part by four semiconductor manufacturers — Intel, IBM, Samsung and Ericksson. According the FuSE solicitation, the four companies have committed to providing annual contributions to NSF for the purpose of funding proposals awarded under this solicitation although the total industry contribution remains unclear from the information provided by NSF.

Under the program, NSF and each participating company will receive a non-exclusive, worldwide, paid-up, non-transferable, irrevocable royalty-free license to all intellectual property rights in any FuSE-derived inventions, consistent with the Bayh-Dole Act, which governs intellectual property rights under federally-supported research grants and contracts.

CISA Publishes New Cybersecurity Strategic Plan

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The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency published a new Cybersecurity Strategic Plan that will guide CISA’s efforts through fiscal year 2026 Aligned with the White House National Cybersecurity Strategy and nested under CISA’s overall Strategic Plan, the new CISA plan provides a blueprint for how the agency will address current and future cyber threats, help organizations become more secure and resilient, and ensure that technology products are secure by design and default. To this end, the Strategic Plan outlines three enduring goals: 

  • Address Immediate Threats by making it increasingly difficult for our adversaries to achieve their goals by targeting American and allied networks; 
  • Harden the Terrain by adopting strong practices for security and resilience that measurably reduce the likelihood of damaging intrusions; and 
  • Drive Security at Scale by prioritizing cybersecurity as a fundamental safety issue and ask more of technology providers to build security into products throughout their lifecycle, ship products with secure defaults, and foster radical transparency into their security practices so that customers clearly understand the risks they are accepting by using each product. 

Under the plan CISA’s efforts must have have a measurable impact in reducing cybersecurity risk. This emphasis on impact includes the creation of better outcome-based measures of effectiveness. . 

DHS seeks counter-UAS capabilities

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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) released a Request for Information (RFI) seeking technologies and solutions to counter small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS). The RFI will be used to invite respondents whose capabilities are selected to participate in two DHS-funded sUAS mitigation demonstrations scheduled for July 10-28, 2023, and July 2024 at the Northern Plains UAS Test Site in North Dakota.

“This effort is designed to expand our knowledge of kinetic sUAS mitigation technologies and how they apply to the multiple DHS mission sets,” said Shawn McDonald, S&T Counter-UAS Program Manager in a press release issued by DHS. “Information and data collected during this event will assist S&T in understanding, measuring and minimizing collateral effects.”

Selected technologies and solutions will test under the direction of the DHS C-UAS program, which assesses C-UAS technologies both in laboratory and real-world operational environments to deliver critical C-UAS capabilities to DHS components.

This RFI is for participation in the demonstration events only. DHS will not award a contract based on this RFI, but selected participants may be asked to sign a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. government.

Industry, academic institutions, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, and other government organizations interested in participating must submit their response to the RFI via email to cuasprogramsupport@hq.dhs.gov by 10:00 AM ET on May 5, 2023.

GAO assessment highlights challenges and opportunities for commercial fusion energy

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The development of commercial fusion energy, which promises to provide a clean, abundant, and sustainable source of electricity, faces significant technical, financial, and regulatory challenges, according to a report released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Mar 30, 2023. The report, titled “Fusion Energy: Potentially Transformative Technology Still Faces Fundamental Challenges,” provides an overview of the current state of fusion energy research and the potential implications for the U.S. energy system and economy.

The commercial potential of fusion energy has been the subject of much excitement and hype since the announcement of ignition at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Lab after a multi-decade effort. However, commercially viable fusion is not just around the corner. GAO cautions that “several challenges must be overcome to achieve commercial fusion, and stakeholders’ projections of this timeline range from 10 years to several decades.”

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CHIPS Application Materials Released

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The Department of Commerce has released new application materials and other resources for the first CHIPS for America funding opportunity for various types of semiconductor fabrication facilities. Commerce has also posted full application materials for applicants seeking incentives for leading-edge facilities.

The Department is asking applicants to submit detailed applications so that it has all the information it needs to evaluate applications and plan awards across the semiconductor ecosystem. This will include financial models that will help reviewers evaluate the commercial viability and financial strength of projects and ensure the application is emphasizing important program priorities such as activating third party capital and customer commitments.

FY 2024 Budget Outline Released — What Does it Mean for CHIPS and Science?

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On Thursday, March 9, the White House released the President’s budget outline for 2024, also known as the “skinny budget”. The outline contains general top line information about science and technology budgets including funding authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act. CHIPS and Science programs are set to receive $6.5 billion above FY 2023, a 26 percent increase under the President’s Plan but well short of the targets set in the CHIPS and Science legislation.

CHIPS and Science funding highlights include: $11.3 billion for NSF, $8.8 billion for DOE’s Office of Science, $1 billion for NIST, part of the Department of Commerce, and $4 billion for the Economic Development Administration (EDA), also part of Commerce.

The total for NSF includes $1.2 billion for activities under the new Technology, Innovation and Partnerships Directorate, including $300 million for new NSF Engines Regional Innovation Centers — a 43 percent increase.

More details are expected to be released on Monday, March 12 with the full version of the President’s FY 2024 Budget Plan.