Images, videos, files: every day, we generate enormous amounts of digital data, a volume that is growing rapidly with the rise of artificial intelligence. How can we preserve this data over the long term when data centres have limited capacity and lifespans? As part of the European DNAMIC project (DNA Microfactory for Autonomous Archiving), a team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and HES-SO, represented by the School of Engineering-HE-Arc Ingénierie, has developed an autonomous microfactory integrated into an archiving system that can remotely store digital archives in DNA. Although still an emerging technology, DNA data storage has considerable potential: in theory, a single gram of DNA could store the equivalent of several thousand hard drives’ worth of data for thousands of years.

According to projections, the volume of digital data created, captured, copied and consumed worldwide will reach 175 zettabytes (ZB) in 2026. This is equivalent to the storage capacity of billions of hard drives, such as those found in our laptops. With the rise of artificial intelligence, this global ‘datasphere’ continues to expand at an exponential rate.

Thanks to its remarkable storage capacity and longevity, synthetic DNA is emerging as a potentially revolutionary medium for storing information. “In theory, one gram of DNA could store the equivalent of the digital collections of the world’s largest libraries for tens of thousands of years,” explains Pierre-Yves Burgi, Deputy Director of the Division of Information and Communication Systems and Technologies (DISTIC) at UNIGE.

The hard drive of the future

As part of a European research collaboration involving Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Lithuanian company Genomika, the Technical University of Munich, Austrian biotechnology company Kilobaser and Imperial College London, UNIGE and HE-Arc have developed DNAMIC, an autonomous microfactory capable of encoding information into synthetic DNA.

On the HE-Arc campus in Saint-Imier (Canton of Bern, Switzerland), the system was tested by digitising a watchmaking heritage archive held by the Centre jurassien d'archives et de recherches économiques (CEJARE), using an archiving tool developed by UNIGE. The system will also enable the archive to be accessed again in the future.

“By using this watchmaking archive, we are paying tribute to the original microfactory, which was designed for the autonomous production of watch components,” explains Jérôme Charmet, Professor at the School of Engineering-HE-Arc Ingénierie, who is involved in the project through HES-SO.

The principle behind DNA data storage is similar to that of computer storage, but it uses a different alphabet. While digital data is encoded in binary form, using 0s and 1s, here it is converted into a quaternary system based on the four DNA bases: A, T, G and C. However, the encoding process must take into account certain chemical properties of DNA, which impose additional constraints. The digital file is therefore translated into this four-letter ‘alphabet’ and then synthesised as a strand of DNA. The encoding process can take several hours.

Energy-efficient

“The resulting archive is then stored for long-term preservation in small stainless-steel capsules that protect the DNA from oxygen, light, moisture and heat,” explains Hugues Cazeaux, Head of the eResearch group at UNIGE’s DISTIC. Unlike conventional data storage media, this method of preservation requires no additional energy, thereby significantly reducing its environmental impact.

While UNIGE and HES-SO initiated the project, it was led by the Lithuanian company Genomika, which coordinated the project with European funding under the Horizon Europe programme. Further funding is now expected to support the project's continued development and help establish it as a start-up. The aim is to make this technology more widely accessible. However, given its relatively high cost at this stage, its use is likely to remain limited, for the time being, to the preservation of valuable archives.