Headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, the new institute is made up of governments, industry, academia, and non-profit organizations from across the country. Combined they have contributed $173 million that will be fused with $80 million in federal funding.

The new ARM institute, part of the Manufacturing USA network, is dedicated to help revitalize American manufacturing.

The ARM Institute's mission is to create and then deploy robotic technology by integrating the diverse collection of industry practices and institutional knowledge across many disciplines – sensor technologies, end-effector development, software and artificial intelligence, materials science, human and machine behavior modeling, and quality assurance – to realize the promises of a robust manufacturing innovation ecosystem.

Technologies ripe for significant evolution within the ARM Institute include, but are not limited to, collaborative robotics, robot control (learning, adaptation, and repurposing), dexterous manipulation, autonomous navigation and mobility, perception and sensing, and testing, verification, and validation.

The ARM Institute joins the Manufacturing USA institute network, a program with industry, academia, and government participants who co-invest in the development of cutting edge manufacturing technologies and capabilities. It is patterned after the Fraunhofer Institute which has 67 institutes and research units located throughout Germany providing focused research on future scientific progress and economic development. 

Each of the 14 new Manufacturing USA institutes focus on a technology area critical to future competitiveness and include advanced tissue biofabrication, advanced functional fabrics, photonics, digital manufacturing and design, advanced composites, flexible hybrid electronics, biopharmaceuticals, advanced semiconductor components, molecular level technologies, smart manufacturing and an accelerator.  The federal government has committed over $1 billion, matched by over $2 billion in non-federal investment, across the Manufacturing USA network. 

ARM will be led by a newly established national nonprofit called American Robotics (not to be confused with a Boston agricultural startup with the same name), which was founded by Carnegie Mellon University and includes a national network of 231 stakeholders from industry, academia, local governments and nonprofits.