diff --git a/ci/scripts/run_pytest.sh b/ci/scripts/run_pytest.sh
index baff2677a..43a253b60 100755
--- a/ci/scripts/run_pytest.sh
+++ b/ci/scripts/run_pytest.sh
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 set -xueo pipefail
 export PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1
 # NOTE: if a non-nvidia user wants to run the test suite, just run `export BIONEMO_DATA_SOURCE=ngc` prior to this call.
-export BIONEMO_DATA_SOURCE="${BIONEMO_DATA_SOURCE:-pbss}"
+export BIONEMO_DATA_SOURCE="${BIONEMO_DATA_SOURCE:-ngc}"
 source "$(dirname "$0")/utils.sh"
 
 if ! set_bionemo_home; then
diff --git a/sub-packages/bionemo-core/tests/bionemo/core/data/test_load.py b/sub-packages/bionemo-core/tests/bionemo/core/data/test_load.py
index ee8146b5d..d0510a7db 100644
--- a/sub-packages/bionemo-core/tests/bionemo/core/data/test_load.py
+++ b/sub-packages/bionemo-core/tests/bionemo/core/data/test_load.py
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
 
 import pytest
 
-from bionemo.core.data.load import default_ngc_client, default_pbss_client, load
+from bionemo.core.data.load import default_pbss_client, load
 from bionemo.core.data.resource import get_all_resources
 
 
@@ -269,12 +269,6 @@ def test_default_pbss_client():
     assert client.meta.endpoint_url == "https://pbss.s8k.io"
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail(reason="Logging into NGC is not required to download artifacts in BioNeMo.")
-def test_default_ngc_client():
-    clt = default_ngc_client()
-    assert clt.api_key is not None
-
-
 @patch("bionemo.core.data.load.default_ngc_client")
 def test_load_with_file_from_ngc_model(mocked_get_ngc_client, tmp_path):
     (tmp_path / "foo.yaml").write_text(