As the coronavirus spreads across the globe, scientists are rushing to find a cure in the genome of the virus. Chipmaker Intel announced on Tuesday that it will work with Lenovo on bringing big data analytics and computing resources to researchers from the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI).
BGI, one of the world’s largest genomics organizations, will have to analyze massive amounts of data reaching terabytes, or even petabytes, to crack the new coronavirus’s genome. In gene sequencing, each milliliter of bodily fluid usually contains millions of different virus particles (virion), and the genome of each contains about 30,000 DNA bases, Intel explained.
Developing vaccines and drugs for Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, has been a top priority for global scientists and tech companies since Chinese researchers released the genome sequence to the scientific community on January 10. Alibaba and Tencent, China’s largest tech companies, have mobilized their genome research capabilities using artificial intelligence and RNA prediction algorithms. For Sars in 2003, it took four months before the genome sequence of the coronavirus was available. The first human trial of a possible Sars vaccine was conducted in December 2004, months after the last known cases.