(Editor's Note: This originally appeared in Inside Critical Minerals.)

The Pentagon's premier research institution has partnered with Utah to establish a "test bed" focused on helping the U.S. increase domestic supplies of key minerals, the agency said on Wednesday.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the state, through the University of Utah, are setting up what they call the “Strategic Materials Accelerator & Research Test Bed,” or SMART, according to a DARPA statement. The goal, it says, is to “increase the domestic supply of strategic materials, such as critical minerals and rare earth elements (REEs), which are essential for U.S. national and economic security.”

Noting the U.S.’ reliance on foreign sources for such materials, DARPA says the test bed at the university will help “mitigate this dependance by fostering the development and scaling of new and efficient technologies for identifying, extracting, and processing these vital resources.”

And, it says, it will provide the U.S a greater ability to test and evaluate emerging technologies, “with a particular focus on scaling up the processing of strategic minerals to bolster domestic supply chains.”

Teams from DARPA’s “Environmental Microbes as a BioEngineering Resource” program will be among the first to use SMART, it adds. Through EMBER, the agency is developing biotechnology-based ways to separate and purify rare earth elements from sources like phosphate mine waste, acid mine drainage and electronics recycling. SMART, it adds, will offer a means of testing and maturing those methods.

“One of the biggest challenges in this space is not invention, but translation,” said Sha-Chelle Manning, chief of DARPA’s Commercial Strategy Office, in the statement. “SMART is designed to reduce the risk of scaling new technologies by giving innovators a place to validate performance at meaningful scale, helping accelerate the transition from breakthrough science to actual capability.”

Last month, the University of Utah announced plans to create an “Institute for Critical and Strategic Minerals” to bolster research and workforce development, part of the state’s push to become a leader in mining and processing.

And in May, the National Laboratory of the Rockies and the school signed a memorandum of understanding allowing the two to work together to “bolster energy security by strengthening supply chains,” as the university said in a statement.

“The monumental effort will require cooperation from all sectors -- and the MOU unites two leaders well-positioned to align key players,” the university said. “Pending approval of the Utah Board of Higher Education, the U’s proposed Institute for Critical & Strategic Minerals (ICSM) would bring together interdisciplinary experts to drive innovation at every stage of critical mineral development while also addressing broader related challenges. Together with its external advisory board of industry and governmental partners, the institute will advance critical minerals research from geological discovery to real-world application.”