Every day, a deluge of data gets created and stored on our phones, the cloud, or data centres. As the world goes digital, finding sustainable ways to store data becomes critical.
Traditional data centres consume massive amounts of energy and resources while powering everything from social media to AI.
But what if we told you that plant DNA might hold the key to this problem? We wouldn’t then need to rely on silicon chips and data centres.
American-Hawaiian researchers Keolu Fox and Cliff Kapono suggest that the genetic material of plants like sugarcane could serve as eco-friendly data storage units. This idea combines traditional ecological knowledge with data science.
Since their TED talk in 2024, the duo has been actively working on projects that investigate the idea of biological data centres. A major focus area has been ‘Earth-friendly computation’, a concept they co-developed with fellow genome scientist Eric Dawson, Fox told AIM.
This vision …