Virtual representations called "digital twins" are used to evaluate and improve real-world systems and items. Automakers, for instance, want to test new manufacturing techniques using digital twins of their facilities without having to halt production.

Applications for what the Biden administration says will total $285 million in funding are now being accepted for projects that include workforce training, industry demonstration projects, building and supporting combined physical/digital facilities, research into semiconductor digital twin development, and operating what it claims will be a new CHIPS Manufacturing USA Institute.

Laurie E. Locascio, director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and under secretary of commerce for standards and technology, stated at a press briefing on Sunday that digital twins could lower the cost of developing and manufacturing chips while also facilitating more collaborative processes related to chip design and development.

According to Locascio, "no nation has successfully united the industry or invested at the scale needed to unlock the enormous potential of digital twin technology for breakthrough discoveries."

This money was included in the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which also contained $52.7 billion to boost American semiconductor production. President Biden stated at the time that the US was now generating fewer than 10% of the world's semiconductors, down from 40% in the past.

Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Arati Prabhakar, stated on Sunday that semiconductor manufacturing had become “dangerously concentrated in just one part of the world” (presumably China) at the time the CHIPS Act was passed, echoing another prominent theme in the administration’s rhetoric.

On May 8, there will be a webinar with information on applicants. Nonprofits, educational institutions, governments, and for-profit businesses that are "domestic entities"—that is, those that are incorporated in the US and have their main place of business here—are among the organizations that are eligible to apply.