Pearcode launches its “DNA Vault” to archive digital data in molecules

The Sophia Antipolis start-up, a spin-off from the CNRS and Université Côte d'Azur led by Melpomeni Dimopoulou, is marketing its first archiving service based on synthetic DNA.

Storing the equivalent of a data centre in a gram of DNA sounds like science fiction, but Pearcode has turned it into a commercial offering. In April the Sophia Antipolis start-up launched its “DNA Vault” (Coffre-fort ADN), a pilot service for archiving critical digital data on synthetic DNA, and says it has signed its first customers, according to the Incubateur Provence Côte d'Azur.

The principle is to translate digital 0s and 1s into sequences of DNA's chemical bases. Under the right conditions the molecule can last for centuries, unlike hard drives and magnetic tapes, which must be copied regularly.

Pearcode was founded in October 2022 out of research at the I3S laboratory, run jointly by the CNRS and Université Côte d'Azur. It was co-founded by Melpomeni Dimopoulou, its chief executive, who holds a doctorate on encoding data in DNA, and Marc Antonini, a research director at the CNRS. In 2023 the start-up won the Grand Prix of the i-Lab innovation competition, one of France's leading awards for research-based companies.

There is still a long way to go: the stated goal is a DNA memory that can be read and written automatically by 2030-2035. In the meantime, the DNA Vault is aimed at organisations that need to keep high-value data for very long periods.