Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE:DNA) today announced that it will provide in-kind access to its autonomous laboratory in Boston to support the National Science Foundation’s X-Labs program. Ginkgo’s support was announced today by Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), at the Science: A New Golden Age Summit in Washington, D.C.

NSF X-Labs is a $1.5 billion, decade-long initiative to fund independent teams of researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs pursuing breakthrough science through milestone-based awards. Through its contribution, Ginkgo will make cloud lab time on its autonomous lab available to NSF X-Labs teams, giving researchers remote access to robotic lab infrastructure to design, run, and analyze experiments.

As part of the NSF X-Labs program, Ginkgo will offer NSF X-Labs teams its protein testing services, enabling researchers to rapidly express and characterize protein designs, including those generated by AI models, without building out their own wet lab capacity.

Ginkgo’s autonomous lab in Boston runs on Ginkgo’s Reconfigurable Automation Carts (RACs), modular robots that combine robotic arms, maglev sample transport, and Catalyst software to run high-mix lab work around the clock. Researchers can access the lab remotely through Ginkgo Cloud Lab, which provides access to a fleet of more than 70 instruments spanning sample preparation, liquid handling, analytical readouts, storage, and incubation.

Autonomous labs are a key part of the U.S. government’s vision for American science. Ginkgo already works with NSF through the Programmable Cloud Laboratories (PCL) Test Bed program, where it is expected to provide RACs and software to cloud lab nodes at Caltech, the University of Maryland, and Northwestern University.