36 petabytes of DNA knowledge storage loaded onto cassette tape

Traditional storage media like silicon chips and magnetic tapes are hitting their capability limits. DNA gives a promising different—researchers on the Southern University of Science and Technology led by Xingyu Jiang requested if DNA based data storage could feel as familiar as popping in a cassette tape (Sci. Adv. 2025, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ady3406).

“The main goal is to create a storage device that is ultra dense, durable for centuries, and independent of the rapid obsolescence of today’s electronics,” Jiankai Li, the primary creator of the examine, says in an e mail.

A single gram of DNA can maintain 455 exabytes of knowledge, about the identical quantity of storage as there may be in about 500 billion one terabyte laptops. Most DNA storage techniques convert code into nucleotide sequences after which retailer them in tubes or encapsulate them in silica or crystals. Instead, Li and the staff printed bar codes onto a nylon-polyester strip to arrange data. The white areas absorb DNA options and act as file compartments, whereas hydrophobic black bars repel the liquid, protecting DNA from leaking. The cassette has a most storage capability of 36 petabytes per 100 m, Li says.

To learn the information, a bar code scanner searches for the right spot, and the reader winds it into place like a cassette. The system then provides a gentle base resolution to unzip the double-stranded DNA. One strand stays connected to the tape whereas the opposite goes into resolution that the researchers feed right into a DNA sequencer and translate again into digital code.

The remaining strand can then be used as a template for additional polymerization, permitting the system to keep up and retrieve the identical sequence a number of occasions. To overwrite data, restriction enzymes snip out the previous strands so new ones may be deposited. The knowledge are additionally secure. Coating the information in a protecting crystal layer that may simply be stripped off means the DNA will final for as much as three centuries at room temperatures, Li says.

As an indication, the group encoded 4 puzzle-piece photographs, deposited them in several positions on the tape, after which recovered the picture information and stitched the items into the entire picture.

“A design from the 20th century turned out to be a perfect way to organize 21st-century molecular data storage,” Li says.

Jeff Nivala, who works on molecular knowledge storage on the University of Washington, says the benefit of this methodology over conventional DNA storage is the automation. “Just being able to automate these molecular workflows is impressive.”

But Nivala says the system is not prepared to exchange present expertise, but. “I don’t think it’s practical today. Theres still a big bottleneck as far as the cost and speed of DNA synthesis.”

Li says the staff will proceed to enhance the DNA tape format. For instance, he says, the staff hopes to combine the system with new sequencing and synthesis methods to make it extra sensible for knowledge storage.