Ford Motor Company, JPMorganChase, the State of Michigan, Michigan Central, and Newlab have launched Michigan LIFT, the Michigan Launchpad for Industrial Innovation & Transformation, a public-private initiative designed to help innovative suppliers secure business from major manufacturers, obtain financing, and scale production in Michigan.
Over the next decade, Ford aspires to award up to $1 billion in contracts to suppliers participating through Michigan LIFT, while JPMorganChase aspires to provide up to $1 billion in debt financing to suppliers on the platform. Michigan Central, Newlab, and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation also aim to attract 10 to 20 additional industrial buyers representing more than $1 billion in annual demand commitments by the end of 2036.
Michigan LIFT is designed to connect industrial demand with emerging suppliers capable of addressing specific manufacturing and supply-chain challenges. Industrial buyers will identify challenges through “Open Calls,” and companies with potentially viable solutions can be connected with customer demand, financing, state resources, workforce programs, and commercialization support needed to move from development into scaled production.
Ford will serve as the initiative’s anchor industrial buyer, with its potential $1 billion in supplier business focused on technologies and capabilities that address practical industrial challenges. JPMorganChase is serving as the founding capital provider, with its planned financing forming part of the bank’s $1.5 trillion, 10-year Security and Resiliency Initiative focused on industries considered critical to national security and economic resilience.
The State of Michigan, through the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, will provide economic development tools and resources for companies with credible paths toward commercial and industrial scale. Newlab also plans to contribute $20 million of in-kind support, including resources aimed at translating industrial demand into commercialization opportunities and helping participating companies execute their growth plans.
The initiative is intended to address several common obstacles faced by industrial technology companies, including uncertain customer demand, limited access to timely financing, workforce shortages, complex supplier qualification processes, and fragmented support programs. Michigan LIFT aims to bring those resources together while increasing U.S. production of critical technologies, components, and industrial capabilities.
Michigan LIFT originated from the Michigan Resiliency Summit, which JPMorganChase and the State of Michigan jointly hosted in Detroit in June 2026. Industrial, financial, and government leaders at the event identified barriers preventing promising technologies and companies from reaching full production scale.
Initial Open Calls will focus on areas aligned with Michigan’s industrial strengths and JPMorganChase’s Security and Resiliency Initiative. These include robotics and advanced manufacturing automation; advanced energy, nuclear technology, semiconductors, and battery storage; advanced mobility, aerospace, propulsion, and critical components; critical minerals mining, processing, and recovery; and life sciences manufacturing.
Life sciences opportunities are expected to include technologies related to pharmaceutical precursors, sterile injectables, medical isotopes, and precision medical devices. Suppliers seeking to establish or expand production in Michigan can respond to Open Calls, after which eligible applicants can be referred to participating industrial buyers for evaluation.
Industrial buyers themselves do not need to be headquartered in Michigan, allowing the platform to attract manufacturers from outside the state with supply-chain needs that Michigan-based or Michigan-expanding companies may be able to address.
Alongside the launch, Ford Philanthropy and JPMorganChase announced $550,000 in combined support for Focus: HOPE, a Detroit nonprofit focused on education and workforce training. The funding will support the organization’s industrial manufacturing training program, including manufacturing skills, robotics, welding, employer connections, career placement, and transportation assistance.
Michigan LIFT’s founding organizations intend to use Michigan as a proving ground for the model and evaluate whether lessons from the initiative could eventually support similar industrial development efforts elsewhere in the United States.
KEY QUOTES:
“Michigan has always been a state that builds, and we’re going to keep leading the next generation of American industry. Michigan LIFT will bring together our world-class manufacturers, innovative companies, skilled workers and capital to turn big ideas into real products, new investment and good-paying jobs. By working together, we can bring more critical supply chains home, help Michigan businesses grow and show the world that the future is built right here in Michigan.”
Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan
“For over a decade, Detroit has shown what is possible when business, government and community leaders work together for the long term. Michigan LIFT builds on that same model of public-private collaboration by connecting customer demand, capital and public resources so more companies can grow, more workers can participate and more critical capabilities can scale here in the United States.”
Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorganChase
“Ford is America’s automaker, and we believe American manufacturing’s best days are ahead. Michigan LIFT is about helping solve real manufacturing challenges faster. It connects innovators, suppliers and manufacturers with the support they need to scale.”
Jim Farley, President and CEO of Ford Motor Company
“Hundreds of high-growth companies are developing technologies that could change the economics of domestic production but face significant barriers to scaling. Michigan LIFT establishes a powerful new public-private model to address those barriers, bringing industrial demand, private capital, and state resources together to give companies a structured pathway to customer validation, investment, and production at scale.”
Liz Keen, Chief Strategy Officer at Newlab
“Michigan’s opportunity is to become the place where hard technologies go from prototype to production. Michigan LIFT is a new model for innovation-led economic development: start with real industrial demand, then connect the companies solving those problems to capital, public tools, workforce and the infrastructure they need to scale.”
Ben Marchionna, Chief Innovation Ecosystem Officer at MEDC
