Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA) announced it will provide in-kind access to its autonomous laboratory in Boston to support the National Science Foundation's X-Labs program, a $1.5 billion, decade-long initiative funding independent research teams pursuing milestone-based science awards.

The announcement was made by Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, at the Science: A New Golden Age Summit in Washington, D.C.

Under the arrangement, Ginkgo will make cloud lab time available to NSF X-Labs teams, giving researchers remote access to robotic lab infrastructure to design, run, and analyze experiments. Ginkgo will also offer protein testing services, enabling researchers to express and characterize protein designs, including those generated by AI models, without establishing their own wet lab capacity.

Ginkgo's Boston lab operates on its Reconfigurable Automation Carts, modular robots combining robotic arms, maglev sample transport, and Catalyst software. Researchers can access the lab remotely through Ginkgo Cloud Lab, which connects to more than 70 instruments covering sample preparation, liquid handling, analytical readouts, storage, and incubation.

Ginkgo already works with NSF through the Programmable Cloud Laboratories Test Bed program, where it is expected to provide equipment and software to cloud lab nodes at Caltech, the University of Maryland, and Northwestern University.

"Robotic labs are key to competing with China and to improving the reproducibility and output of U.S. science," said Jason Kelly, co-founder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks.