The 1000 Genomes Project data from is now publicly available at Amazon Web Services, announced the US National Institutes of Health and Amazon. "The move to put the data up on ... Amazon Web Services, aims to help speed up access to the research. Previously, researchers had to download data from government data centers or their own systems, or even snail mail it on discs," notes Sarah Perez at Tech Crunch. The data set currently includes the full genomes of 1,700 people — taking up 200 terabytes — and aims to include 2,662 people from 26 populations, Amazon adds. The company is storing the data for free, though researchers will have to pay for any additional resources they need to analyze the data.
NIH adds that the project is a model for a new big data initiative announced by the White House. The 'Big Data Research and Development Initiative' includes $200 million across six federal agencies to support large amounts of data, including a joint venture between NIH and the National Science Foundation.