ALFA Field Notes

CLPS

Several weeks ago, we shared news of lunar landings from two private space companies: Firefly and Intuitive Machines. Today, leaders of these companies will be in front of the Space, Science, and Technology Committee to share their work and discuss the efficacy of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services Providers (CLPS) program — the primary customer for private landers. Also joining the panel is Astrobotics CEO John Thornton, one the first CLPS vendors.

The CLPS initiative leverages private space companies to deliver NASA payloads to the moon for research, expanding the lunar economy, and supporting the overall Artemis mission to return to the moon. The program has a cumulative maximum contract value of $2.6 billion from 2018 - 2028. Contracts to date amount to a little over $1 billion.

There are over a dozen private space companies that are eligible for NASA contracts to deliver payloads to the moon and “since the CLPS initiative began in 2018, NASA has signed contracts for 11 deliveries, taking more than 50 instruments to the lunar surface.”

Of course, the program is not without its needed reforms. An IG report last summer showed 14 month delivery delays and over $200 million in cost overruns — both attributed to NASA’s tightening grip on the program from what was originally intended to be a hands-off and risk tolerant strategy. We suspect the space-faring incoming NASA administrator will look to return the initiative back to its original charter.

“A healthy person wants many things. A sick person wants one.”

This quote from Naval often comes to mind when thinking about the advancement of new drug discovery. New drug prospects for diseases previously incurable or lacking sufficient treatments could very well be made possible by artificial intelligence. And a funding announcement yesterday could be one of the paths that helps us get there.

Google's Isomorphic Labs announced a $600 million funding round led by Thrive Capital, with participation from Google's venture arm GV and parent company Alphabet. Founded by British AI pioneer Demis Hassabis and spun out of Google's London-based DeepMind lab, Isomorphic represents a powerful fusion of Western technological cooperation.

Their breakthrough AlphaFold technology – which earned Hassabis and researcher John Jumper half of last year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry – can predict the complex behavior of DNA, RNA, and millions of proteins, transforming drug development timelines.

The strategic implications are substantial:

Computational Science Leading Biotech Revolution – Isomorphic demonstrates how advanced computing now drives medical breakthroughs. As Hassabis states: "This is the No. 1 most beneficial application of AI out there... Our mission, one day, is to solve all disease."

Private Capital Accelerating Critical Innovation – Thrive Capital's investment strategy continues targeting transformative technology, from Instagram and Stripe to OpenAI and now Isomorphic. The firm's founder Joshua Kushner noted: "Our hope is that AI radically changes the way drugs are created and discovered."

Computational Demands Signal Infrastructure Needs – The massive computational resources required by platforms like AlphaFold underscore why energy infrastructure development remains critical for Western technological leadership. Isomorphic has already established research partnerships with pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Novartis potentially worth billions. Their pioneering approach makes computing power the primary laboratory for drug discovery. As China advances rapidly in computational biology, Google's Isomorphic investment signals the West's determination to maintain leadership in a domain with profound implications for health security and economic strength.

Committee Work on American AI

There are several hearings in the House this week — across multiple jurisdictions — explicitly focused on AI:

• America’s AI Moonshot: The Economics of AI, Data Centers, and Power Consumption (April 1 @ 10 AM) — Of all the AI use cases, perhaps none is more important than jobs and economic advancement. This hearing will start to quantify the downstream impact of the AI infrastructure investment announcements. Witness Mark Mills testifies: if “AI raises CBO-measured productivity growth (which is already conservative) merely back to the late 20th century’s average -- that would, by 2030, add a cumulative extra $10 trillion to the U.S. economy. And it could be more.”

• From Chalkboards to Chatbots: The Impact of AI on K-12 Education (April 1 @ 10:15 AM) - Have you seen how rapidly our world has changed in the past 12 months? Adjusting our educational objectives and models to match where we are going will require the integration of AI tools in from our classroom setting to supplemental tutoring and teaching.

• Artificial Intelligence: Examining Trends in Innovation and Competition (April 2 @ 10 AM) - While Europe builds regulatory fortresses and China throws state capital at the problem, America's advantage has always been our dynamic innovation ecosystem. Preserving this means avoiding both suffocating regulation and monopolization —- allowing the market's "creative destruction" to drive advancement while maintaining guardrails against genuine abuses.