Exiger Exchange with Kit Conklin
Jun 25, 2026 · 31 min · 11 segments
CEO Matt McKnight joins Exiger Exchange to talk about the next frontier of national security: biology. He is a Marine Corps veteran, former Palantir executive, and founder of the now publicly-traded…
Matt McKnightGuest
Kit ConklinHost
During the Cold War, we built satellite systems, radar networks, and early warning infrastructure to detect nuclear weapons before they reached us.

Today, the threat landscape is shifting again with advances in AI, bioengineering and global connectivity.

The next major shock to a supply chain may not start with a tariff, a port closure or a new export restriction.

It may start with a pathogen moving quietly around the world, an outbreak in a mining corridor, a disease tearing through a facility that makes the components the modern economy runs on.

The US and its allies are pouring billions into critical mineral supply chains in places like Congo, where an Ebola outbreak is threatening to shut down the mines we need to build iPhones, missiles, and cars.

It's called biointelligence, the ability to spot biological threats before they reach our factories, our borders, our supply chains, and our military bases.

He is the founder and CEO of Perimeter Bio, a commissioner on the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, a senior fellow at Harvard, and a former Marine.
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During the Cold War, we built satellite systems, radar networks, and early warning infrastructure to detect nuclear weapons before they reached us.

Today, the threat landscape is shifting again with advances in AI, bioengineering and global connectivity.

The next major shock to a supply chain may not start with a tariff, a port closure or a new export restriction.

It may start with a pathogen moving quietly around the world, an outbreak in a mining corridor, a disease tearing through a facility that makes the components the modern economy runs on.

The US and its allies are pouring billions into critical mineral supply chains in places like Congo, where an Ebola outbreak is threatening to shut down the mines we need to build iPhones, missiles, and cars.

It's called biointelligence, the ability to spot biological threats before they reach our factories, our borders, our supply chains, and our military bases.

He is the founder and CEO of Perimeter Bio, a commissioner on the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, a senior fellow at Harvard, and a former Marine.