Amazon and Google are duking it out to be the service researchers turn to store and analyze their genomic data, Reuters reports.
Their cloud offerings, dubbed Amazon Web Services and Google Genomics, respectively, help researchers store and analyze the vast amount of data generated by genome sequencing. As interest in personalized medicine grow, Reuters notes that cloud computing may be worth $1 billion a year by 2018.
"The cloud is the entire future of this field," Craig Venter tells Reuters.
It is, Reuters adds, enabling researchers on opposite sides of the country to quick share data and collaborators to analyze their data.
To lure customers in, both companies are hosting some genomic datasets for free — like the 1000 Genomes Project dataset — but otherwise charge between $3 and $5 a month for storage and additional fees for computing time. Their speed and security, as compared to university or government servers, Reuters adds, is also a selling point.
Currently, Google Genomics' David Glazer says academic and pharmaceutical research projects are his biggest customers, but he foresees them being surpassed in the next decade by clinical applications.