Fiber reinforced polymers (FRPs) are ideal lightweight materials that can play a key role in, sustainable mobility, harvesting of natural energy resources, assisted living, and cutting edge medical technologies. However, high production costs are often still a main obstacle for broad industrial application. Robust design of the manufacturing processes and efficient analysis methods are an essential requirements in order to achieve economical implementation. Today, this is usually enabled by numerical simulations of the material behavior and their manufacturing processes. In this keynote talk, we showcase the areas of fiber reinforced polymer composites where numerical simulations have been implemented in order to gain a deeper understanding into their processing and physical behavior. From simulations of FRP manufacturing processes, to virtual material characterization at the micro and meso-scale as well the design of smart structures and their analyses using novel techniques.