Project description
Using DNA to efficiently store huge data amounts
Every day, we store vast amounts of data on different media. Magnetic tape, used for long-term archival storage, is the most durable of these media but can still only preserve data up to 30 years. This type of storage furthermore needs a controlled climate, non-sustainable raw materials for its production, electrical energy and a lot of physical space. As a solution, the EU-funded DNA DS project proposes data storage in a DNA molecule. More efficient than any man-made storage medium, DNA can store over 450 petabytes in a single gramme of substance. The project’s high-tech solution could scale down data centres to the content of a single vial of liquid.
Objective
According to Domo Inc., we were producing 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day in 2017, and by 2020, it is estimated that for every person on earth, 1.7 MB of data will be created every second. This vast amount of data is stored on hard drives, flash drives and, for long-term archival storage, on magnetic tape. Even magnetic tape, the most durable of storage media, can preserve data no more than 30 years. What is more, the data archived on magnetic tape requires controlled climate (humidity and temperature), electrical energy, and a lot of physical space (huge data centres) to preserve the data, not to mention the necessary non-sustainable raw materials to produce the tape. BioSistemika has developed an innovative, high-tech solution to address these problems by storing digital data into the DNA molecule – the oldest, most efficient data storage medium in history. As a storage medium, DNA is incomparably more efficient than any of humanity’s artificial data storage media in nearly all aspects, capable of storing more than 450 petabytes (450 x 103 terabytes) in a single gram of substance, compared to 0,15 terabytes in a gram of the state-of-the-art LTO-8 magnetic tape by IBM (3 million-fold difference). This means that whole data centres could both be scaled down to the content of a single vial of liquid and be duplicated in a matter of hours with minimal to no costs. Furthermore, DNA was optimized to remain durable and intact within extremely variable environments by the forces of nature. It does not require electricity to preserve data and is resistant to most electromagnetic radiation and most other forms of degradation (e.g. temperature), thus making it the perfect medium to store and archive data. Our business model canvas, which sums up our project, is attached with this application.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.