America Makes launches MIAMI and INSITE project calls worth $25.6M for defense AM qualification

America Makes, in coordination with the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM), has announced two new project calls totaling $25.6 million in funding. The first, the Maturation Initiative for Additive Metals Interchangeability (MIAMI), is a $12.4M effort funded by the Office of the Under Secretary of War, Acquisition and Sustainment, Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) Program. It aims to validate that metal AM materials can reliably replace traditional alloys in Department of War weapon systems, with three awards anticipated. The second, the INtegrated System for In-situ Testing & Evaluation (INSITE), is a $13.2M project funded jointly by IBAS and the OSW ManTech Office, targeting a single award to develop an integrated quality-assurance system combining in-situ monitoring and post-build nondestructive evaluation for large, dense, or complex AM parts. Key personnel include John Martin, Additive Manufacturing Research Director, and Ben DiMarco, Technology Transition Director at America Makes.

These project calls represent a direct, government-funded assault on the two highest barriers to metal AM adoption in defense: material qualification cost and part certification risk. The MIAMI initiative tackles the aerospace qualification grind head-on by seeking to generate shared, validated data that allows AM materials to be substituted across multiple weapon platforms without redundant testing — a structural market redefinition that could compress qualification timelines from years to months for approved material-property sets. The INSITE project addresses the persistent gap between lab-grade monitoring and production-ready inspection, aiming to unify in-situ sensing with post-build NDE into a certifiable framework rather than advancing isolated technologies. Both efforts are funded through the IBAS program, reflecting the post-NDAA §849 urgency to expand the defense industrial base, and target metal PBF-LB and DED processes specifically, where part complexity and material density create the most acute inspection challenges.

For the AM industry, the practical signal is clear: the U.S. Department of War is moving beyond pilot projects and into systematic qualification infrastructure. America Makes is not funding novel printer development here — it is funding the data and inspection frameworks that make existing metal AM systems certifiable for production use. Companies that can contribute validated material property datasets or integrated monitoring-NDE workflows should engage directly with the May 7 and May 12 kickoff webinars. The winners of these awards will effectively write the qualification playbook for defense metal AM over the next three to five years.