The United States is launching Foundry School to build an advanced manufacturing workforce to support President Trump’s drive to restore American manufacturing. The State Department-led initiative, announced September 3, brings together the U.S. government, leading universities and global industrial leaders.
Developed through a public-private partnership with Stanford University, Foundry School will prepare the next generation of American entrepreneurs, engineers, technicians and industrial leaders to build and operate the advanced manufacturing enterprises of the future.
Foundry School begins in September with seven regional sessions hosted by Arizona State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Kansas, Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis. The regional sessions will cover the fundamentals of modern factory design, materials and supply chains, assembly-line engineering, plant economics, regulation and permitting, and workforce development at scale. In January 2027, Stanford University will host a 10-session core program focused on advanced manufacturing capabilities and featuring live instruction from globally recognized advanced manufacturing leaders.
The State Department plans to work with Congress to support Pax Silica economies’ participation in Foundry School. The department is working with Stanford to develop a curriculum for U.S. and foreign counterparts to strengthen allied manufacturing capacity and supply chain resilience.
Foundry School is a flagship program of the State Department’s Pax Silica initiative, an economic security partnership connecting governments, industry and universities to strengthen the critical supply chains and industrial capabilities that underpin the AI economy.
“For decades, our diplomats have built relationships with the companies that became the best in the world at making things,” Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg said September 3 at a launch ceremony in Washington. “Now we are bringing it home.”
Foundry School joins the industrial scene amid a U.S. manufacturing revival. The manufacturing sector grew for the seventh straight month in July, which brought the strongest growth in the sector in four years, the White House says. Meanwhile, the U.S. is attracting trillions of dollars of industrial investment.
At the launch ceremony, Vice President Vance referred to Foundry School as “reinvesting in American workers.”
“We woke up to the reality just a few years ago,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the announcement, “that we are suddenly, as a nation, dangerously dependent — dangerously dependent — on other nations for all sorts of things that we need.”
