AI Forecasting Saves Lives

As President Trump heads to Kerrville, Texas today, there will be renewed national attention on the tragic floods from last week.

One of the takeaways from this event—along with every other extreme weather event—is the need for our government agencies to be incorporating every tool at their disposal to deliver the very best data and information to the people. And there is no tool more powerful than artificial intelligence.

AI-based weather forecasting offers earlier and more precise models for meteorologists to make predictions, which can be the difference between life and death.

Fortunately, next week the House Science, Space, and Technology is holding a hearing titled, Protecting Lives and Property: Harnessing Innovative Technologies to Enhance Weather Forecasting to explore closing the tech gap in government.

Ahead of that hearing, we got in touch with one of the witnesses that will be testifying, Founder and CEO of Silurian AI, Dr. Jayesh Gupta.

Silurian is an AI‑driven Earth simulation startup focused on transforming weather forecasting and environmental modeling. They deliver AI forecasting models that give users more informed tools to make decisions. Launched at Y Combinator in Summer 2024, their model generates multi‑day forecasts and outperforms traditional models from NOAA and ECMWF in key areas.

What Silurian provides is a tool—just like any AI model. And as a tool our government must not hesitate to use it in service of the American people.

Agencies across government need to accelerate AI adoption. Not to displace the work done by critical service providers such as air traffic controllers or meteorologists, but to strengthen it. That is the power that AI offers.

Private companies and foreign countries like the UK are doing this is at a much faster clip. As the leader in AI capabilities, the general American populace should not be left behind.

Congress is already working on specific directives to incorporate AI tools for critical services such as wildfire prevention. They should extend that out to all weather forecasting. Next week’s hearing will be a good opportunity for policymakers to hear about the technology that exists. Their next act should be to put it in the hands of the critical government services that we rely on everyday.

Manufacturing capacity is the key indicator of national power. Especially with the capability curves of artificial intelligence, economic might in the future will be built on a foundation of manufacturing and infrastructure.

Moreover, America’s capacity to build and maintain our way through a potential conflict will be decisive in a high-end fight, and our adversary’s confidence in our manufacturing ability can be a lynchpin in deterring a conflict altogether.

But while small and medium manufacturers comprise 98% of U.S. manufacturing firms—placing almost all of the surge capacity in small businesses—they are not well catalogued or integrated into the marketplace. Military leadership acknowledges our industrial base remains "unprepared for a protracted war with China."

Small and medium manufacturers also face serious barriers getting in the defense industrial base: DFARS compliance costs, source approval delays, and working capital requirements that exclude them from defense work.

To fix this, Congress could look to something like a Manufacturing Readiness Reserve (MRR). Here’s how that might be able to help build industrial power capacity:

Pre-qualification: doing the work now to register manufacturers meeting baseline quality and cybersecurity standards.

Readiness contracts: fund compliance and tooling in exchange for guaranteed surge capacity.

Supply chain visibility: AI-driven monitoring to identify bottlenecks before they constrain production has benefits in peacetime (not only in the early days of a conflict).

Dual-use hubs: These can be anchored in regional centers, maintaining skills through commercial work.

The result could be surging timelines that compress from years to weeks for critical components. Lower tier suppliers would also gain investment for modernization and cyber compliance and lower transaction costs around a coordinated capability catalogue. All while strengthening regional manufacturing ecosystems with robust workforce development.

The full picture is a flywheel going that could de-risk the broad surge capacity in our industrial readiness and strengthen American manufacturing.

ALFA is a platform for ideas and technologies that enhance American life. Are you a technology company or policy advisor working on something that pulls society forward? Drop us a line at [email protected] or subscribe here.

Thanks for reading and have a great day.

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