A pilot program for National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership program centers will spur development and commercialization of technologies critical to the U.S. industrial base, Jyoti Malhotra, MEP division chief for national programs and platforms, said during a June 24 webinar.
The competitive pilot program will focus on accelerating the use of additive manufacturing for aerospace components and establishing a domestic critical minerals supply chain, she said. NIST has committed to spending about $20 million per pilot project under the program over two years, according to a Federal Register filing.
NIST’s MEP National Network is a public-private partnership that works with manufacturers to “improve production efficiency, develop new products and customers, expand and diversify markets, adopt new technologies, strengthen workforce strategies and enhance value within supply chains,” the Federal Register announcement said. MEP centers cover all 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico at about 450 service locations.
The goal of the pilot program is to leverage the MEP National Network and other NIST programs and partnerships to advance “transformative technologies” like additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence and automation to improve U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and national security, the announcement said.
“To succeed, advanced technologies must be deployed throughout the full manufacturing ecosystem, from large manufacturing plants to component makers at all levels of the supply chain, especially small and medium-sized manufacturers,” it said.
Only existing MEP centers may apply for the pilot program. Applicants are expected to develop and validate “shared technology frameworks that can substantially accelerate the acceptance of advanced manufacturing methods or transform fragmented supply chains into a robust ecosystem,” per the announcement.
The 38-year-old MEP relies on “national-scale U.S. industry partnerships and networks” to ensure that “innovations, grounded in technical expertise that we have in our laboratories, are delivered and deployed at commercial scale across the country,” Eric Lin, NIST’s acting associate director for innovation and industry services, said during the June 24 webinar.
He added that the MEP is “aiming to supercharge U.S. domestic manufacturing” by helping companies attract capital, identify supply networks and establish partnerships needed to adopt and commercialize “high-impact technologies.”
“Manufacturing USA, the NIST laboratories and MEP all have a role to play in trying to link all these pieces together,” Lin said. “It is the idea for this MEP pilot program to take advantage of all of those resources and assets to collectively build the connective tissue that allows the technologies to be scaled.”
In April, President Donald Trump sent an initial budget proposal to Congress for fiscal year 2027 that eliminated MEP funding as part of a broader proposed $993 million NIST budget reduction.
According to the proposal, the MEP is “an underperforming and unnecessary program that has failed to accelerate America’s manufacturers’ ability to compete in the 21st Century and instead turned its attention to promoting DEI as a solution to the decline in American manufacturing.” Previously, the Trump administration has argued that the funding the MEP provides should come from private entities.
Last December, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and 27 of her Democratic colleagues wrote to Craig Burkhardt, NIST’s acting under secretary of commerce for standards and technology, accusing the agency of withholding and delaying congressionally approved MEP funds and asking for a program status update.
On June 25, Cantwell and and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., sent a follow-up letter to U.S. Acting Comptroller General Orice Brown saying that NIST’s response to the senators’ December 2025 request was inadequate and calling for a Government Accountability Office investigation into the matter.
“Since Secretary Lutnick took control of the Department of Commerce, the Department has put the future of the MEP Program and the services it provides to over 600,000 American manufacturers in deep uncertainty with an ever-shifting chronology of statements, actions, and reversals,” they said. “A robust investigation by GAO would help determine whether and how officials at the Department circumvented or ignored congressional directives on MEP.”
On May 19, the Senate confirmed Arvind Raman as the next NIST director despite those proposed cuts and what senators from both parties perceived as a lukewarm endorsement of the MEP during Raman’s confirmation hearing.
During Trump’s first term, his administration made multiple budget proposals seeking to eliminate nearly all MEP funds, which ranged between $130 million to $146 million each year, according to congressional data from fiscal years 2018 to 2021. Congress ultimately restored program funds each time.
