AMO invests in manufacturing research and development (R&D) projects through competitive solicitations known as funding opportunities, as well as prizes, lab calls, and requests for proposals from its network of manufacturing institutes.

R&D projects focus on foundational or advanced energy technologies across the U.S. economy. AMO prioritizes investments that are high impact, target nationally important innovations at critical decision points, and contribute to quantifiable energy savings.

AMO's research portfolio cuts across two critical mission spaces:

The Industrial Efficiency & Decarbonization mission space supports innovation in technologies and practices to enable the industrial sector to reach net zero emissions by 2050. AMO achieves this through focused investments in energy-intensive and cross-sector technologies as well as through technical assistance and workforce development to address various skill gaps across the manufacturing sector.

The Advanced Materials & Manufacturing Technologies mission space supports basic research into technologies that increase domestic competitiveness and build a clean, decarbonized economy. This includes work on clean energy technology manufacturing and sustainable and secure supply chains.