The White House launched a competition for three new manufacturing innovation institutes Thursday, its latest effort to help revitalize American manufacturing and encourage domestic investment.

The successful proponents for the institutes will be selected through a competitive process, led by U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense. Federal funding of 200 million U.S. dollars would be matched by industry co-investment and support from state and local governments, the White House said in a statement.

The launch of three new institutes, which U.S. President Barack Obama proposed in his State of the Union speech, will build on the success of a pilot institute on 3D printing, which was set up in the state of Ohio last year. They are part of the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) envisioned by the Obama administration.

In his 2014 fiscal year budget sent to the U.S. Congress in early April, Obama called for a 1 billion dollar investment to create a network of 15 manufacturing innovation institutes across the country. Each institute, the White House said, would serve as a regional hub designed to bridge the gap between basic research and product development, bringing together companies, universities and community colleges, and federal agencies to co-invest in technology areas that encourage investment and production in the United States.

After shedding millions of manufacturing jobs in the years before and during the economic recession, the United States has added about 500,000 manufacturing jobs in the past three years, government figures show.