The DARPA Simulating Microbial Systems (SMS) kickoff meeting was held July 16–17, 2025, at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington.

The SMS program aims to build generalizable, multiscale computational models of Escherichia coli capable of predicting complex microbial behavior. The kickoff meeting brought together DARPA program managers, principal investigators, and the validation and verification team from PNNL to launch collaborative work across the two SMS thrusts—Measure & Inform and Simulate & Predict.

Hosted at PNNL’s Discovery Hall, the event featured technical discussions on high-throughput microbial experimentation, scalable simulation architecture, and workflow integration across teams.

The meeting marks the official launch of the SMS program, with research teams now moving toward the first round of capability demonstrations aligned with DARPA’s benchmarks.