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BOSTON (WBZ-AM) -- It could be a game-changer when it comes to digital storage--instead of microchips or magnetic tape, how about using DNA? That's the mission of MIT spin-off Catalog Technologies.
"We're building a platform to store any arbitrary digital data, so anything, like music, video, or your documents, you can store on DNA," co-founder Hyunjun Park told WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Jeff Brown. "It's in liquid form when we work with it, but when we store it we would freeze-dry it and dry it down so it's a pellet in the bottom of a tube."
The company hit the street with $9 million in seed money Tuesday, and Catalog has its work cut out for it.
"Our goal is to be able to store a terabyte of information per day into DNA molecules," Park said. "Entire data centers could fit into just shoeboxes full of DNA. You could carry around on your person a lot more data than has ever been possible before."
Park said he hopes to bring something to the commercial sector as soon as next year. The company is already beta testing with some unnamed companies.