Reasons Why Microsoft Bought Millions Of DNA

Microsoft has bought millions of strands of DNA, which stores the human body's information, to see if its data properties can be harnessed for storing other kinds of information. DNA can fit almost 1 billion terabytes of data into just one gram. That makes it far more efficient than any other known form of storage.

 And it also manages to last for a long time, as can be seen in the fact that the DNA of woolly mammoths has stayed accessible tens of thousands of years after they died. Storing data in DNA would allow it to last for 2,000 years or more. But DNA remains expensive. The US startup that Microsoft bought the DNA from charges 10 cents for a custom DNA sequence. Accessing it is similarly expensive, as it relies on genetic sequencing. Costs have dropped massively -the human genome project cost about $3 billion in the 13 years it took from 1990, but would cost $1,000 now.


"Our tests with Twist show that in the future we'll be able to increase the density and durability of data storage," said Doug Carmean of Microsoft.