Genomic data transfer at nearly 10 gigabits per second between US and China
June 30, 2012
BGI's servers (credit: BGI)
A group of scientists and researchers successfully demonstrated genomic data transfer at a sustained rate of almost 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) over a new link connecting U.S. and China research and education networks, BGI, the world’s largest genomics organization, announced today.
This data rate is equivalent to moving more than 100 million megabytes — more than 5,400 full Blu-ray discs — in a single day.
The data transfer demonstration was part of a June 22 event in Beijing celebrating a new 10 Gigabit U,S.- China network connection supported by Internet2, the China Education and Research Network (CERNET), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and Indiana University.
BGI performed the live demos of ultra high-speed data exchanges between the three world-class genomics institutions. For example, BGI transferred 24 gigabytes of genomic data from Beijing to UC Davis in less than 30 seconds. A file of the same size sent over the public Internet a few days earlier took more than 26 hours.
“The use of a 10 Gigabit network connection will enable scientists in the genomics-related fields to communicate and transfer data more rapidly and conveniently, and bring the best minds together to better explore the mysteries of life science,” said Dr. Dawei Lin, Director of Bioinformatics Core of Genome Center;and National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
Genomics has revolutionized the life sciences. While the cost of DNA sequencing is steadily decreasing, the amount of data generated with next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies is growing at an unprecedented pace. How to conveniently share the tremendous volume of data has become a significant research bottleneck. The 10 Gigabit Internet connection may provide a significant new tool for tackling “big data” and increasing scientific collaboration, education and cultural exchange between the two countries.
Comments (6)
by snake
Cool, now they can steal our information at light speed!
by Bri
Stealing stuff of the Internet seems to be a way of life. Tail to almost any American teen. This is to foster better relations. The more we become one the more it doesn’t pay to go to war . Look at the top Russian leaders war mongering comment recently. Their stock market got a hair cut. Very disruptive to business ties. Right now I’d keep my eye on china. They are about to get a hair cut. Their new high tech cities off the future are flopping bad. No one can afford to live in them! We are tied together with them, soon they’ll need to play by the rules. It’s a world economy, everybody has to!!!
by Trey Beathard
With all due respect Gator, until China allows uncensored internet access to all of its people, then the West and China are not “on the same team”.
by Ed
10Gb/sec just does not seem like a big number anymore. Nice to have but not a geewiz.
by GatorALLin
It would be an interesting world if everyone would see all humans on the same side. I know when I was growing up all the movies had USA against the Russians… then when the cold war was over we needed a new enemy and so the fear of the unknown for China seemed to take over…. then capitalism took hold even in China and suddenly half the stuff in our homes were made in China and we even have the Olympics there. What if our new big enemy was hunger, or disease and not each other for the first time? Yeah, I know the movies may get boring if suddenly we don’t have an official enemy to put our fears into (did you hear about the next Red Dawn2 movie? they switched from China to North Korea for example to come up with a better foe). Here we are sharing data with China at an ever faster rate for example. Yeah we got some stuff done when we had to race to get the atom bomb developed first, yeah we got the space race going ahead of the Russians, but what if we worked together vs. our little bubbles? Even though we increase our intelligence, can we outgrow or upgrade our human nature of fear, war, hate? Lets hope we can for all the right reasons…. I sure hope the sparkle of new technology and the promise of improved lifestyles (for every person, not just in the USA) brings everyone up and gets everyone on the same team.
by Gabor
Of course we will outgrow “our human nature of fear, war, hate” and it will be like a tsunami, first hardly noticeable, then it’s like a force that would be laughably impossible to resist – but again, you already knew that…Will we still call ourselves humans?! I don’t know, but personally I don’t think of myself as a Neanderthal now, do you? The only difference is that thanks to technological evolution (genetic engineering) the next step will be bigger than the one we took since the Neanderthals and could happen in our own or the next generation…