DNA Data storage

Descripción del proyecto

ADN para almacenar eficientemente enormes cantidades de datos

Cada día almacenamos grandes cantidades de datos en diferentes soportes. La cinta magnética, que se utiliza para el almacenamiento de archivos a largo plazo, es el soporte más duradero de todos, pero aún así solo puede conservar los datos hasta treinta años. Además, este tipo de almacenamiento requiere un clima controlado, materias primas no sostenibles para su fabricación, electricidad y un gran espacio físico. El proyecto DNA DS, financiado con fondos europeos, propone como solución el almacenamiento de datos en una molécula de ADN. El ADN, más eficiente que cualquier soporte de almacenamiento artificial, puede contener más de 450 petabytes en un solo gramo de sustancia. La solución de tecnología punta del proyecto podría reducir el tamaño de los centros de procesamiento de datos a nada menos que el contenido de un único vial de líquido.

Objetivo

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.