Storing Digital Data on Synthetic DNA: State of the Art and Open Challenges

The amount of digital data generated worldwide is continuously growing at an unprecedented rate: 90% of all existing data has been created in the last two years alone. This explosive growth leads to an exponential increase in the consumption of scarce resources and energy, with no absolute guarantee of the long-term integrity and durability of data storage. Notably, approximately 70% of this data is considered “cold”, meaning it is rarely accessed and can remain unused for extended periods of 10 years or more. As a result, digital data storage has become one of humanity’s critical challenges.