PFU America Joins DNA Storage Alliance

PFU America, Inc., based in Sunnyvale, CA, a member of the PFU group of companies, joined the DNA Storage Alliance, led by Twist Bioscience Corporation, Illumina, Inc., Western Digital Corp. and Microsoft Corp.

It has been promoting digital transformation worldwide through the provision of its mainstay image scanner products and has contributed to digital archiving projects for various historical artifacts. With its digitalization technology and experience, PFU will support the advancement of the DNA storage ecosystem with the alliance members.

The future of storage solved by DNA
Cultural assets of art, history, and science are valuable information that need to be preserved for the future. However, despite the hard work put into their preservation, many of them are disappearing due to natural disasters and age-related deterioration. Also, as digital transformation becomes more widespread in society, the born-digital information is increasing at an unprecedented rate. According to IDC, in 2020, 64.2ZB of data were created or replicated, of which only less than 2% was saved and retained into 2021.

Recording and maintaining the cultural information is one of the most expensive and energy-intensive issues facing society. A sustainable solution is needed to ensure the valuable data can be safely recorded and preserved in a format that will always be available to future generations.

DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) is a molecule that contains the genetic instructions for all living organisms. It goes without saying that DNA is an information medium and scientists around the world can learn about the global environment tens of thousands of years ago by analyzing the DNA preserved in fossils and other materials. DNA is a molecule that can exist stably in the natural environment and does not require a large amount of energy for storage. Because of these characteristics, DNA is attracting attention as an emerging technology to realize future storage needs.

Established in October 2020, the DNA Storage Alliance aims to drive awareness and adoption of DNA storage through use cases and the development of an industrial roadmap. As a member, PFU America, joins a diverse group of companies that each contribute expertise on an aspect of synthetic biology and storage. Members support the organization’s mission by contributing to white papers, events and technical discussions.

“PFU has contributed to the business of customers by providing solutions that convert analog information into digital. However, as the world continues to shift toward a data-driven society, we recognize that there are still many issues for customers to utilize digital assets over the long term,” said Kenjiro Tsurumi, CEO, PFU America. “DNA storage is an environmentally friendly technology that not only solves the problems of information explosion and long-term storage, but also has the potential to have a major impact on the society in the coming decades. And we believe the technology and experience we have developed in digitalization will help the DNA Storage Alliance achieve its goals.“