Ankara: Chinese researchers have developed the world’s first DNA “movable-type” inkjet printer — a breakthrough development to tackle the data storage crisis, state media reported Tuesday. The game-changing innovation — a machine with a footprint of 6 square meters (65 square feet) — is poised to far outpace its predecessors in speed and slash costs.
According to Anadolu Agency, the Bi Sheng-1 machine was developed by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It can encode digital files into genetic material with high decoding accuracy, a milestone that could play a pivotal role in addressing humanity’s looming data crisis. As traditional silicon-based storage struggles to keep pace, facing escalating energy demands and physical limitations, global data production is projected to surge to 394 zettabytes by 2028, with one zettabyte equating to 1 trillion gigabytes.
Researchers have recognized DNA, the blueprint of life, as a remarkable natural storage medium. A single kilogram of DNA has the capacity to store all the world’s data and remain stable for centuries without degrading, as noted in a paper published in the journal Advanced Science. However, existing DNA storage technologies, akin to traditional block printing, synthesize lengthy DNA strands for each piece of information, resulting in a time-consuming and expensive process that cannot efficiently reuse common elements.
In a demonstration, the Bi Sheng-1 printed 168,000 DNA movable type blocks in five hours using a multi-step enzyme-linking process. It encoded 43.7 KB of data from four files at a speed of 4 bytes per second. In contrast, cutting-edge DNA synthesizers currently on the market have a writing efficiency of just 0.49 bytes per second.