DNA sequencing has been a very expensive service for quite a long time. However, with the inception of more powerful machines and advanced tools, it is increasingly becoming more affordable. Now, according to Nvidia, it is providing Tesla GPUs to a Chinese genomics institute BGI. These GPUs will be used to power up EasyGenomics, which is being described as an ‘affordable, cloud-based DNA sequencing service.’
With the help of the Tesla GPUs provided by Nvidia, it is being hoped that the process of DNA sequencing, which normally takes up to many days, will be completed within a few hours. BGI has a sequencing platform which happens to be the largest in the world. Nvidia is providing the institute with its Tesla M2070 and M2075 GPUs.
Both BGI and Nvidia hope that with more powerful GPUs and the largest sequencing platform combined, they will be able to provide a sequencing service which will b e most easy to use and the most affordable so far. The project to that end is being called ‘EasyGenomics.’
According to the vice president of BGI, ‘GPU acceleration enables scientists to analyze DNA sequencing data faster than was ever possible, reducing the time from five days to just five hours. Once fully deployed in the cloud, we anticipate EasyGenomics could one day revolutionize genomics research.’
Nvidia personnel are also very hopeful with this project. The senior director of Tesla business at Nvidia stated, ‘This could be the year of the $1,000 genome due to rapid decline in sequencing costs. We will soon be drowning in a deluge of data from the genome sequencers. BGI’s EasyGenomics service uses the power of GPU computing to provide an affordable and easy-to-use method for scientists to crunch through this new genomics big data problem and get us that much closer to effective and affordable individualized treatments.’
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