Scaling adoption of synthesis screening outside the US and EU

A recent field strategy guide for synthesis screening identified voluntary adoption of screening as one of the key initiatives to secure the DNA supply chain, which it also identified as the most critical chokepoint for engineering a pandemic-capable pathogen, a capability that is currently diffusing into more hands as AIs become significantly more bio-capable. Voluntary adoption of screening helps to pave the way for regulatory incentives and mandates for screening, and helps to preserve the strategic ambiguity necessary for effective deterrences.

Quoting the guide, "if providers screen even in countries without mandates (as they do today), a bad actor can’t safely assume any given provider won’t screen." If synthesis screening will be effective at preventing engineered pandemics, it needs to be significantly more widely-adopted than it is at present. The goal is by 2030 >80% of companies conduct high-quality screening, with modelling funded by Sentinel Bio suggesting this threshold would significantly reduce engineered pandemic risk by raising barriers for non-state actors. Coverage of China and India, identified by IBBIS’s Global Synthesis Map as the countries with the second- and fourth-largest number of custom synthesis companies, is necessary to reach that threshold.