Bio-threat modeling and war-gaming

Bio-threat modeling and war-gaming simulates biological-threat scenarios — pandemic tabletop exercises, biodefense war-games, and structured risk assessment of emerging threats like AI-designed pathogens — to inform government policy, institutional preparedness, and research-governance decisions. This work is fundamentally advisory and analytical rather than a commercial product, and is dominated by a small number of academic biosecurity centers and policy think tanks rather than a broad vendor market with product pages. As of 2026 only one institution was confirmed with strong, on-topic evidence of an active bio-threat-modeling and exercise practice; several other named candidates (a biosurveillance company, a national laboratory) returned only generic academic papers that never actually named the specific candidate, a common false-confirmation pattern in this catalog area.

The key directions of bio-threat modeling and war-gaming are:

1. Pandemic tabletop exercises: structured scenario exercises that walk government or institutional participants through a simulated pandemic response, testing decision-making and coordination under realistic constraints.
2. AI-designed pathogen risk assessment: emerging analysis of the risk that AI tools could be used to design or enhance a biological threat, a rapidly developing 2026 policy concern.
3. Biodefense war-gaming: structured simulation of a deliberate biological-attack scenario to test national or institutional response capability.
4. Congressional and policy-briefing scenario discussions: interactive scenario sessions designed to inform legislators and policymakers on emerging biological-risk topics.

Sectoral value chain#

[Threat scenario design] ──> [Exercise/simulation execution] ──> [Participant response capture] ──> [Analysis]
                                                                            │
                                                                  (findings synthesis)
                                                                            │
                                                                            ▼
[Policy/preparedness recommendations] <─── [Report publication] <─────────┘

Value chain levels#

Cross-cutting technologies of the sector:

• Scenario-design methodology: structured approaches for building a realistic, policy-relevant biological-threat scenario.
• AI-risk assessment frameworks: emerging methodology for evaluating whether AI tools meaningfully increase biological-threat risk, a fast-moving 2026 policy area.
• Exercise facilitation infrastructure: the operational capability to run a multi-participant tabletop or simulation exercise and systematically capture its outputs.

The category’s “technology” is scenario-design and exercise-facilitation methodology rather than a physical product, applied to an evolving set of biological-threat scenarios.

1. Scenario exercise design:
   • The SPARS 2017 coronavirus scenario, developed years before COVID-19, is still referenced as a training tool — reflecting how a well-designed scenario can remain relevant across multiple real-world biological events.
2. AI-biorisk governance analysis:
   • The center’s 2026 commentary on AI-designed viral genome governance addresses an emerging risk category — the possibility that generative AI tools could meaningfully lower the barrier to designing a dangerous pathogen — a topic with active 2026 congressional and policy attention.
3. Structured exercise facilitation:
   • The Biosecurity Simulation Exercise (BSX) course format applies structured facilitation methodology to walk participants through a realistic biosecurity scenario, systematically capturing decision-making gaps for later analysis.