Create the opportunity · Stage 01
Identifying where a project can do the most.
Before a project exists, there is a need — a gap in capacity, a stalled corridor, an underused asset, a supply chain exposed to risk. We work with regions, agencies, industries, and institutions to find those needs and judge where coordinated development would matter most.
What identification means
From a general concern to a specific opportunity.
A capacity gap
A region loses an employer, a supply chain concentrates offshore, an industry cannot scale for lack of infrastructure. These are signals that development is needed.
Can a project address it?
Not every gap is a project. We ask whether a defined, deliverable initiative — with a sponsor and beneficiaries — could credibly close it.
Does it serve a public purpose?
We prioritize opportunities that strengthen national or regional capacity, resilience, and economic opportunity, not narrow private gain.
A candidate opportunity
What emerges is a specific, describable opportunity ready to be originated into a project concept.
How we identify
Where the signals come from.
Priority mapping
We track national and regional priorities across industry, infrastructure, energy, technology, and workforce, and map them against where capacity is thin.
Institutional intake
Agencies, companies, communities, and technical bodies bring us needs directly, through submissions and standing relationships.
Screening
Each candidate is screened for public purpose, deliverability, and fit with the platform before development resources are committed.
Common questions
About identification.
Yes. Governments, companies, communities, and technical experts can present a development need or opportunity for preliminary review.
Among the candidates that clear screening, we rank by the scale of the capacity gap an opportunity would close and how squarely it advances national and regional priorities.
A measurable gap in capacity — a region that loses an employer, a supply chain that concentrates offshore, an industry that cannot scale for lack of infrastructure, or an asset left underused. These are the signals that coordinated development may be warranted.
No. A gap becomes a candidate only if a defined, deliverable initiative — with a sponsor and identifiable beneficiaries — could credibly close it. Identification is partly the discipline of telling the two apart.
It shows net U.S. import reliance for several critical minerals, drawn from the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries. It is an example of a capacity gap you can actually measure — a signal that development may be needed, not a project in itself.
We prioritize opportunities that strengthen national or regional capacity, resilience, and economic opportunity rather than narrow private gain. That public-purpose test is applied before an opportunity advances, not after.
From two sources: priority mapping, where we track national and regional priorities against where capacity is thin, and institutional intake, where agencies, companies, communities, and technical bodies bring needs to us directly.
Each candidate is screened for public purpose, deliverability, and fit with the platform. Screening happens before any development resources are committed, so effort is spent only on opportunities that can credibly move forward.
A specific, describable candidate opportunity — one clear enough to be originated into a project concept with an owner. It is the starting point of the sequence, not a commitment to build.
No. Presenting a need is the earliest and lowest-cost stage of the work, and it carries no obligation. It simply lets us assess whether a coordinated project could address the gap you have identified.
See a development need worth addressing?
Tell us about a region, sector, or asset where a coordinated project could strengthen American capacity.