Senators and Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, discussed the role of automated cloud labs and AI in accelerating biotechnology research and the biosecurity safeguards needed with those tools.

Why it matters: Automated, cloud‑enabled laboratories — paired with AI for experimental design and analysis — can accelerate discovery in pharmaceuticals, diagnostics and other life‑science fields. Lawmakers asked how the administration will support such labs and ensure biosecurity.

Kratsios said the administration supports automated lab capacity and identified the National Science Foundation and other agencies as early funders and technical partners. He described how AI could “supercharge” research by iteratively proposing experiments to an automated lab and receiving rapid feedback, increasing the pace of discovery compared with traditional R&D models.

Senators referenced existing public‑private capabilities, including the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIMBLE) at the University of Delaware and Manufacturing USA institutes. Kratsios said these entities should be leveraged and that OSTP recognizes the need to pair rapid innovation with biosecurity safeguards and model evaluation to mitigate misuse.

The subcommittee asked OSTP to coordinate across NSF, DOE, NIH and NIST to fund cloud‑lab pilots, to define evaluation methods for AI models used in biosciences and to ensure oversight and testing pathways are in place. Kratsios said agencies are already exploring proposals and that the NSF is “running ahead” on cloud‑lab proposals.