BGI, based in Shenzhen, is one of the world’s largest organizations for fundamental life sciences research. Most commentary on BGI has focused, quite narrowly, on the organization’s ambitions for scaling-up biology into a high-throughput production line. Our approach, drawing on ethnography, performance studies, and urban studies, aims to situate BGI’s laboratories and work within the local economic, social, political, and urban contexts within which it exists. Rather than seeing BGI as a “factory,” we suggest that the appropriate description is a unique kind of “start-up.” BGI draws deeply on the local culture and “spirit” of Shenzhen, but blends this with the ethos of Silicon Valley entrepreneurialism. The result is that BGI’s laboratories comprise a model polity, enacting a youthful, modern, productive, innovative, cosmopolitan, meritocratic society for China.