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Driving Innovation

From developing precise atomic clocks to creating encryption standards to supporting manufacturing, NIST plays a crucial role in advancing technology.

What we do

From nanoscale devices that power the most advanced microchips to earthquake-resistant skyscrapers, NIST’s measurements and research fuel innovation and improve the quality of life for all Americans. We provide support and resources to U.S. manufacturing, helping to grow our economy and ensure our national security.

Discover how our work makes America safer, healthier and more prosperous.

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What’s new

Champlain Towers South Investigation Team Provides Update to Structural Engineers

Horizontal concrete slab is visible in a forest of scaffolding and equipment in a large indoor space.

NIST Updates Privacy Framework, Tying It to Recent Cybersecurity Guidelines

Privacy Framework wheel includes central Govern circle and four outer sections: Control, Communicate, Protect, Identify.

NIST’s Curved Neutron Beams Could Deliver Benefits Straight to Industry

When an ordinary beam of neutrons strikes the team’s silicon grating, the millions of scored lines on the grating convert the neutrons into an Airy beam, whose wavefront travels along a parabolic path. The triangular shapes on the detector match the predicted behavior of an Airy beam, offering evidence of the team’s success.

Quantum and Dance: It Takes 2 to Entangle

Krister Shalm, wearing safety glasses, smiles over a lab table covered with electronics equipment.

A black and white image of the aluminum alloy under a microscope. Most of the image is light grey, but there are many small black spots that have lines extending out from them like cracks.

Rare Crystal Shape Found to Increase the Strength of 3D-Printed Metal

April 7, 2025

A scientist wearing protective equipment places a tray of diced geoduck clam tissue into large open machinery.

NIST Researchers Develop Material for Measuring Arsenic in Shellfish

March 13, 2025

Collage illustration of servers, laptops and phones is divided into left "Old Encryption Standards" and right "New Encryption Standards."

NIST Selects HQC as Fifth Algorithm for Post-Quantum Encryption

March 11, 2025

Hands rest on a laptop keyboard beneath a floating overlay of computer code and connecting lines.

NIST Finalizes Guidelines for Evaluating ‘Differential Privacy’ Guarantees to De-Identify Data

March 6, 2025

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America’s national measurement institute

Photograph of the NIST-4 Kibble watt balance in blue light.

NIST is the National Metrology Institute for the United States, also known as an NMI. Everything you use in your everyday life works because of measurements. Without precise measurements, your car wouldn’t run, your phone wouldn’t work, and hospitals couldn’t function. We maintain the measurements that make industry and society work. Learn more about our unique role in the national — and global — economy.

Photograph of the NIST Gaithersburg Campus

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