Transcriber: Irfan Shaji Alamana Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
What if you could hold the entire world’s data in your hands?
It seems impossible, right?
Well, I am here today to convince you for the opposite
and to share with you some secrets about how this could be achieved.
As you probably already know,
we are living through the era of digital evolution,
where we generate 2.5 quintillion bytes per day,
which is the equivalent of 10,000 billion photos
that people take with their smartphones.
To get a better image of this number,
let me tell you that 90 percent of the world’s data
has been only generated in the last two years.
Another important fact that may come as a shock to you
is that 80 % of the digital universe is composed by data
We use the term cold to describe the digital information,
which is very infrequently accessed but still remain safely stored
for security and regulatory compliance reasons.
In fact, we are constantly generating such data.
Take as an example an old photo of yours.
One you uploaded in your social media 10 years ago
and have forgotten about it.
Or do you remember that extremely important email you had received
by a colleague of yours 20 years ago that said “Yes”?
You don’t remember it?
Well, believe me when I say
that this e-mail still exists somewhere on a database,
and we are constantly creating such data.
So now I would like you to take a moment
and try to imagine what could be the necessary volume of a data center
so as to be capable of storing all the data existing on the internet.
But I bet that it’s not that simple, right?
Also, do you happen to know
for how long can digital data be safely stored in conventional storage devices
without any loss of information?
Approximately 10 to 20 years maximum.
So, what if I told you that all of this data
can be stored in a shoebox
and kept safe for all eternity?
You don’t believe me, right?
Well, let me convince you with the following story.
In 2014, scientists have managed to fully recover the DNA
of a woolly mammoth that had been trapped into permafrost.
Now there are two interesting facts about this story.
To begin with, as you probably already know,
DNA is the biological molecule which is responsible for storing
all the necessary information for a living organism to survive in a very tiny volume,
such as the one of the cells.
But what is even more exciting about this story
is the fact that this DNA ages back 40,000 years
and it is still recordable readable.
So this is how a great idea was born:
to use the molecule of DNA as a storage medium for digital data.
But how can we do so?
Let’s take for example, a photo.
Any digital information, such as this picture,
is expressed in the form of a binary sequence composed by zeros and ones.
On the other hand,
the molecule of DNA is composed by four different building blocks,
the nucleotides, which were used to denote using the symbols A, T, C and G.
Consequently, the key step for storing digital data into DNA
would be to transform the binary sequence of zeros and ones
into a quaternary encoding of A,T,C and G.
Once encoded into quaternary,
the quaternary strands are going to be sent
to get synthesized in the form of DNA.
Now at this point, it is important to mention
that we are talking about synthetic DNA here.
This means that it is chemically synthesized in vitro in a laboratory
by composing the DNA strands nucleotide by nucleotide.
This means that no organism needs to be a donor of their own DNA molecules
as the DNA that we’re going to use for the purpose of data storage
is artificial.
However, it shares the exact same properties as the real DNA,
with the only difference that since the nucleotide strand
is just some quaternary encoding of some digital data,
it will not contain genes and therefore it cannot produce life.
After a synthesis, the DNA is going to get stored into some special tiny capsules
which can keep it safe from contacts with water and oxygen,
and can promise reliability for hundreds of years in a room temperature.
So until this point, we have done all the necessary work
to store all of our digital information into this capsule.
Now the question is, how do we read back?
To retrieve the content from those capsules,
we are going to use some special machines which are called the sequencers.
The sequencer is going to read the DNA content of the capsules
and provide us with the quaternary code that is stored inside,
and by using the inverse process of the encoding,
we can retrieve the binary sequence of zeros and ones,
and therefore, the digital information which has been stored.
Simple, isn’t it?
But the most challenging part in this whole processis the fact
that the process of DNA sequencing is prone to errors.
This means that the encoding algorithms should be very carefully selected
so as to provide a robust DNA code.
Therefore, the application of their correction techniques
could significantly improve the reliability of the decoding.
In other words,
if one applies an efficient and robust encoding algorithm,
which is especially designed so as to handle and reduce the sequencing error,
the storage of digital data into DNA is not only feasible,
but also very secure and therefore extremely promising.
Just imagine that in a theoretical estimation,
scientists claim that all of the world’s digital data can be stored
in a single kilogram of DNA, which is about the size of a shoebox.
But now, after you know all those technical secrets,
let us talk a little bit about the practical part.
Could we instantly stop using all these cloud storage and servers
that are so easy and convenient for us?
For the moment, no.
DNA data storage requires the process of DNA synthesis and sequencing,
and they both include some very fine and delicate manipulations.
Therefore, for the moment,
it is a bit difficult to imagine long strands of DNA
to be massively produced at a large scale.
However, this scenario is something that we can easily visualise
at the range of five to 10 years.
So now, I guess you might be wondering then
what is the whole point of using DNA data storage today?
It is, in fact, the storage of this cold data
that we discussed about earlier.
All this data that at the first thought might seem negligible.
But if you better think about it, it is not.
In fact, we are constantly generating an extreme amount of such data.
And only a small percentage of this
is correctly organized into offline backup tape drives
so that does not occupy much space in online servers,
But even backup tapes themselves
they have a limited lifespan which yields the need
for frequently migrating their content into new storage units every five years.
So the solution is both expensive in terms of energy and money.
DNA data storage could be the key solution to this problem,
as it can allow the storage of a great amount of information
without requiring much space or energy.
Furthermore, the fact that the data is being kept
in such a small and safe container such as those capsules
makes it easier to protect from any environmental disaster
that big data centers are being exposed to.
Just think about how much data has been lost
every time that the data center catches fire.
How many songs, films or other data related to our cultural patrimony?
So as you might suspect, this novel storage technology
can revolutionize the future.
There is only one delicate point to be discussed:
as DNA data storage is inspired by the magnificent properties of DNA
and highly depend to some relatively new biological technologies,
such as the one of DNA synthesis and sequencing,
it is kind of reasonable that those procedures
are relatively expensive for the moment.
But if you think about the cost
of maintaining backups of big server rooms
that need to be frequently repaired and replaced,
you will see that the total cost over time
is at least comparable to storing data into DNA.
But if you also think back to the prices of the first transistors
that were used for computers
and follow the evolution of this cost
in function of their extraordinary advance over the years,
you will realize that it is kind of naive to complain
for the cost of DNA data storage without really giving it a chance.
Besides, biological technologists already experience a great advance
and a very rapid progress,
and we strongly believe that the more that will be used and studied,
the more the cost will be reduced.
Every time I discuss with people about this subject,
they tend to get very excited at first,
but when it comes to discussing about the cost,
all this excitement goes away.
I sometimes face reactions such as
“No, this is too expensive, why should we use this?”
” Or even people asking,
“Do you really believe that this technology will ever compare
to the conventional solutions that are so easy and efficient
in terms of access time? Why should we use DNA?”
So let me answer to all those questions by coming back to that image
that we hypothetically stored into DNA a little while ago.
As I said in the beginning of my talk,
every day would generate an amount of digital data
which is equivalent to ten thousand billion photos, such as this one.
All this information is then being stored into hard drives.
But we will not need only one of those, we will need thousands.
And as all the data gets multiplied day by day,
we finally end up here.
This is the solution that we are currently using.
More precisely, in 2012, there were only 500,000 data centers
to handle traffic, while today there are more than eight million.
Data center researchers estimate
that the energy usage of data centers continues to double every four years.
Every year, millions of data centers are purging metric tons of hardware,
draining country-sized amounts of electricity
and generating carbon dioxide emissions
as much as the global airline industry.
Several models even predict
that the electricity usage of data centers
will reach ten percent of the global electricity supply
by 2030 if it is left unchecked.
So, my question is: are we really going to continue like this discussing about cost?
What is the cost of thousands of forests burning?
What is the cost of destroying the flora and fauna of our world
or polluting the air that we breathe?
Are we really going to discuss about cost?
For the moment, there exists only few pioneering works on the topic,
ours being one of them,
and we propose an eco-friendly solution that could flourish
if more people were willing to explore it and satisfy their curiosity.
And if you think that this is just some crazy idea,
far from reality that belongs maybe too far in the future,
I must say that all those great technological breakthroughs
that humanity is nowadays proud of,
started by just some people who had some crazy idea.
This is our easy and convenient solution for the moment.
And this is the solution that we propose.
You can’t see it?
Well, this is exactly my point!
A single pixel on this slide is equivalent to one single gram of DNA.
This is the amount of DNA that is needed for storing all the data of a data center.
Let’s face it, we are living in a digital world
that works like a frantic race.
It cannot be sustainable.
So I believe that this is our winning solution.
I believe that storing this 80 percent of cold data into DNA
can revolutionize our future.
And we must not forget:
most of the data that we store is our memories.
It’s an essential part of our lives and our culture
that we shouldn’t negotiate with.
For if we lose it, we lose a part of ourselves.
And without our memories,
how can we fight for a brighter future?
How can we dream for a better world for tomorrow?
Thank you.