CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Friday that a new textile innovation hub will help the U.S. keep pace with peer competitors racing to close the technology gap.
“Nations like Russia and China are modernizing their militaries,” Carter said at the Samberg Conference Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “And even as things like satellites and the Internet have given us great strengths and great opportunities, they’ve also led to vulnerabilities that adversaries are eager to exploit.”
Carter announced on Friday a new partnership of 89 companies, universities and researchers led by MIT to develop smart textiles that can generate power, sense chemical threats and provide lighter-weight protection for troops.
“This is a pioneering field, combining fibers and yarns with things like flexible integrated circuits, LEDs, solar cells, electronic sensors and other capabilities to create fabrics and cloths that can see, hear, sense, communicate, store energy, regulate temperature, monitor health, change color and more,” Carter said.
The textile consortium will be funded by $72 million in federal funds and $250 million in non-federal money, including a $40 million grant from the state of Massachusetts.
“The research supported by this funding will produce new uses that are unimaginable,” Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said. “Ultimately, you can put an infinity sign next to all of the potential that this technology holds for the future.”
More broadly, the Pentagon has asked for nearly $72 billion in fiscal 2017 for research and development — more than double what Apple, Intel and Google spent on research and development last year combined, Carter said.
The hub in Cambridge will look at ways to develop fabric that could be used for uniforms that is lighter-weight and fire resistant but can also detect chemical threats or know when a service member needs a bandage.
The innovations in fabric will do more than make troops more comfortable, however, they will also save lives, Carter said. One potential innovation is a tent troops could use in the field made of fabric that can create and store energy. That would reduce how much fuel is needed and, therefore, the number of convoys, which killed two soldiers every 50 resupplies on average in Afghanistan.
Another would create a nylon parachute fabric with lightweight sensors woven in that can catch small tears that could expand in midair.
“The reality is that, as I stand here, we don’t know all the advances this new technology will make possible — that’s the remarkable thing about innovation — and it’s another reason why America, and America’s military, must get there first,” Carter said.
Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf also spoke at the ceremony in a conference room overlooking the Boston skyline and Charles River.
The focus on textiles has broad applications for civilians, as well. Carter said the technology developed by the military-backed hub could produce running shoes as lightweight as socks, lighter protective equipment for firefighters and wearable fitness-tracking technology in a T-shirt instead of a wrist band.
The textile institute is the eighth manufacturing hub set up under the Obama administration, according to a White House fact sheet. The last one announced in August is also lead by the Pentagon and focuses on wearable technology. It is based in San Jose, Calif.
Carter’s announcement in Cambridge wraps up a three-day, technology-focused trip that also saw the secretary visit labs at the University of Texas at Austin.
