The ARM Institute recently hosted representatives from the Department of Defense’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC), including Vyshi Suntharalingam (Chief Technology and Engineering Officer), at our Pittsburgh headquarters! During our meeting, the ARM Institute learned more about OSC and established next steps to connect ARM Members to OSC.
The United States is in a global competition for technological advantage. In that competition, private capital is the dominant source of funding and a key source of U.S. comparative advantage. Yet, some critical technologies and their components attract relatively little private investment and are not always supported by traditional procurement methods for national security needs.
In response, the Secretary of Defense established the Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) in December 2022 to attract and scale investment to national security priorities. OSC was established to (1) attract private capital to national security priorities and (2) scale investment in critical technologies.
Connect with OSC at the ARM Institute’s Annual Member Meeting
ARM Members will have the opportunity to connect directly with Vyshi and OSC during our Annual Member Meeting taking place Sept. 23-25 in Pittsburgh. During the Member Meeting, Vyshi will host an optional roundtable session during breakfast on Sept. 25 to understand the specific technologies that ARM Institute member companies are developing. Through this roundtable, OSC seeks to understand companies’ business models and ecosystems; perspective on speed and scale in the product development and manufacturing process; and plans for adoption, including commercialization and military use cases.
Learn more about the Annual ARM Member Meeting
OSC Request for Information
Additionally, OSC has an active Request for Information (RFI) exploring strategic capital needs for industries related to the Covered Technology Categories to inform the design and implementation of the DoD Loan Program. Topic areas in this RFI include:
- General: What are your current geographical and business sectoral coverage areas?
- Financing: How can the DoD Loan Program partner with financing firms to crowd capital into Covered Technology Categories and their supply chains?
- Experience with U.S. government financing: How can the DoD Loan Program be complementary to existing financing tools from the U.S. Government?
- Economic outlook: What is your outlook on the five-year macroeconomic projection for the Covered Technology Categories you selected previously?
The deadline to respond is October 22, 2024.
Learn more and respond to the RFI
ABOUT THE ARM INSTITUTE
The ARM (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing) Institute is a Manufacturing Innovation Institute (MII) funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defense under Agreement Number W911NF-17-3-0004 and is part of the Manufacturing USA® network. The ARM Institute leverages a unique, robust, and diverse ecosystem of over 400 consortium members and partners across industry, academia, and government to make robotics, autonomy, and artificial intelligence more accessible to U.S. manufacturers large and small, train and empower the manufacturing workforce, strengthen our economy and global competitiveness, and elevate national security and resilience. Based in Pittsburgh, PA since 2017, with a regional office in St. Petersburg, FL, the ARM Institute is leading the way to a future where people and robots work together to respond to our nation’s greatest challenges and to produce the world’s most desired products. For more information, visit www.arminstitute.org and follow the ARM Institute on LinkedIn and X(Twitter).