Big Data: Astronomical or Genomical?

TLDR

Genomics is a rapidly expanding Big Data field, but it is unclear if its data demands will surpass those of other domains. The study calls for developing new technologies and coordinated community planning to address genomics’ impending computational challenges over the next decade. The authors projected 2025 data demands and compared genomics to astronomy, YouTube, and Twitter. The estimates indicate that genomics is either on par with or the most demanding of the compared domains in acquisition, storage, distribution, and analysis.

Abstract

Genomics is a Big Data science and is going to get much bigger, very soon, but it is not known whether the needs of genomics will exceed other Big Data domains. Projecting to the year 2025, we compared genomics with three other major generators of Big Data: astronomy, YouTube, and Twitter. Our estimates show that genomics is a "four-headed beast"—it is either on par with or the most demanding of the domains analyzed here in terms of data acquisition, storage, distribution, and analysis. We discuss aspects of new technologies that will need to be developed to rise up and meet the computational challenges that genomics poses for the near future. Now is the time for concerted, community-wide planning for the "genomical" challenges of the next decade.