NextFlex

NextFlex is the nation’s leading hub for hybrid electronics, dedicated to accelerating innovation from concept to real-world deployment while strengthening U.S. manufacturing and national security. Its mission goes beyond advancing new technologies, it ensures they are manufacturable, scalable, and ready for impact in both defense and commercial markets. By bridging the gap between research and production, NextFlex enables faster, lower-risk transitions from the lab to operational systems.

As a Department of War-sponsored Manufacturing Innovation Institute, NextFlex brings together government, industry, and academia to address a critical challenge: moving breakthrough electronics into practical use more efficiently. Its work is anchored in three core areas of impact—accelerating innovation, strengthening the industrial base, and developing a skilled workforce. This integrated approach allows NextFlex to serve as both a collaborative platform and a hands-on commercialization partner, turning ideas into deployable capabilities.

Central to this model is NextFlex’s national consortium of more than 200 members and partners. This ecosystem fosters cross-sector collaboration and provides access to cost-shared research and development, technical manufacturing roadmaps, and a broad network of expertise. Members benefit from alignment with Department of Defense priorities and emerging market needs, ensuring their innovations are both relevant and impactful. Through this structure, NextFlex helps reduce technology transition timelines by up to 50%, accelerating development while ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, and production ready.

In addition to collaboration, NextFlex offers direct support through its Technology Hub, delivering end-to-end product development services. From advanced design and prototyping to validation and pilot manufacturing, the organization works closely with partners to refine system architectures, integrate materials, and ensure performance and reliability. This early focus on manufacturability reduces cost and risk, enabling smoother scaling to production.

NextFlex also strengthens the U.S. industrial base by connecting organizations across the full value chain. It supports startups and small-to-medium enterprises in entering supply chains while increasing their visibility to federal agencies and key stakeholders. Alongside this, its workforce development programs—spanning K–12 engagement, technical training, and upskilling—help build the talent needed to sustain innovation.

Ultimately, NextFlex transforms innovation into impact, turning technologies into deployable systems, prototypes into products, and partnerships into market opportunities—faster, smarter, and together.