Microsoft To Use DNA To Store Data In The Cloud

An article at MIT Technology Review says some early work at Microsoft Research is looking at how to encode documents in DNA. The aim is to have some sort of working model by the end of this decade, with the tagline “Your Storage with DNA” being bandied about.

As we reach the thresholds of what we can do with spinning hard drives, SSDs and other solid state memory, companies are looking at removing the bottlenecks in systems in all sorts of novel ways. So it’s not surprising that the system that can encode an entire living organism is being looked at as a template.

According to the article, every movie ever made would fit into something the size of a sugar cube.

While the process is described as “laborious and expensive” at the moment, the one thing I’ve learned over the years is that things that are difficult and costly today, if valuable, do become more cost effective and simpler over time.


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