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UTSA opens $111M Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute

The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) formally launched last week its $111 million Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute.

The new Institute, CyManII, is designed to transform U.S. advanced manufacturing and make manufacturers more energy efficient, resilient, and globally competitive against our nation’s adversaries. CyManII will focus on three high priority areas where collaborative research and development can help U.S. manufacturers: securing automation, securing the supply chain network, and building a national program for education and workforce development.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) will work with UTSA to advance the Institute’s goals. ORNL is the Department of Energy’s only designated user facility dedicated to improving U.S. manufacturers’ energy efficiency and competitiveness. ORNL also brings expertise in cyber- and cyber-physical security, including secure communications, situational understanding, sensing, and predictive artificial intelligence to deter and defeat potential disruption to supply chains and critical infrastructure.

“Oak Ridge National Laboratory is proud to bring its world-leading Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, powered by the lab’s digital manufacturing and cybersecurity expertise, to bear in protecting U.S. manufacturers,” ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia said. “By collaborating with the University of Texas at San Antonio and other CyManII partners, we will develop comprehensive measures that can be adopted across the manufacturing sector and used to train a new national cybersecurity workforce to support a secure, resilient, and robust manufacturing ecosystem.”

The university will enter into a five-year corporative agreement with the DOE to lead a consortium of 59 proposed member institutions in introducing a cybersecure energy-ROI that drives American manufacturers and supply chains to further adopt secure, energy-efficient approaches, ultimately securing and sustaining the nation’s leadership in global manufacturing competitiveness. The 59 members include three Department of Energy National Laboratories (Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories), four Manufacturing Innovation Institutes, 24 powerhouse universities, 18 industry leaders, and 10 nonprofits. It is funded by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) and co-managed with the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER).

“As U.S. manufacturers increasingly deploy automation tools in their daily work, those technologies must be embedded with powerful cybersecurity protections,” Howard Grimes, CyManII CEO and UTSA Associate vice president and associate vice provost for institutional initiatives, said. “UTSA has assembled a team of best-in-class national laboratories, industry, nonprofit and academic organizations to cybersecure the U.S. manufacturing enterprise. Together, we will share the mission to protect the nation’s supply chain, preserve its critical infrastructure, and boost its economy.”

CyManII’s research objectives will focus on understanding the evolving cybersecurity threats to greater energy efficiency in manufacturing industries. They will also focus on developing new cybersecurity technologies and methods and sharing information and knowledge with the broader community of U.S. manufacturers.

Dave Kovaleski

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