TAIPEI, TAIWAN, Feb. 26, 2021 – COVID-19, also known as SARS-CoV-2, accumulates an average of one to two mutations per month. Researchers draw up phylogenetic trees to make connections and track the pathogens and its mutations between geographic populations to constantly trace the virus and to inform the public to ensure optimal safety.
Findings from the genome sequencing of the novel virus of the 103 genomes analyzed, found two distinct types of mutations of COVID-19: namely by the S and the new-type L genome. In order to make these new discoveries, new technologies are needed to constantly upgrade to match the demands the bounds of research science needs to track this global pandemic, and to hopefully save more lives for the months ahead.
For genome sequencing technologies, Intel is equipped to help during this uncertain era. Intel is known as the leading company in the field of computer hardware and supercomputing, they also focus on the field of life science. We here at WASAI are proud partners with Intel and have seen the power of their FPGA accelerator first hand in the development of WASAI Lightning. Together, with InAccel, a developer of FPGA acceleration software that has a very strong cloud computing element. Three companies are pushing the boundary of supercomputing and genomics.
The Million-Dollar Question in the Realm of Genomics
With the raging pandemic, new mutating variants of COVID-19 need to be tracked faster and more accurately than ever. Therefore, it can be said that Genomic Analytics is at its height of its importance. Genome datasets can exceed 300GB per person; along with the six billion base pairs of whole human genomes that are stored globally across millions of samples on biobanks- there is an abundance of data seen.
The Million Dollar Question in genomics is, how do we find a method to process huge amounts of data in the fastest way possible without spending-well, one million dollars?
WASAI, Intel, and InAccel Deliver a Solution
The answer to the issue of cost can be seen in the work done by companies like Intel and InAccel. For acceleration with reduced costs, opt for FPGAs with no loss! Intel’s Sequence and Alignment and Variant Calling Acceleration project aims to have high performance genome analytics platforms: integrated framework for large deployment with both cloud and on-premise infrastructure. These accelerators will be integrated with an FPGA orchestrator by Inaccel with our very own WASAI Lighting solution for high performance accelerators for sequencing alignment. Our Product, WASAI Lighting on Intel’s Arria® 10 GX FPGA acceleration Card or Intel Stratix® 10 SX FPGA allows Whole Genome Sequencing to be completed in three hours! In addition, WASAI delivers an improvement by 5x to 11x compared to the traditional software solution for Germline Whole Exome Sequencing or Whole Genome Sequencing.
To read more, please download our white paper!
About WASAI Technology Inc.
WASAI Technology's mission is to deliver acceleration technologies of High-Performance Data Analysis (HPDA) in future data centers for targeted vertical applications with massive volumes and high velocities of scientific data. To strengthen and advance scientific discovery and technological research via big data-intensive acceleration in high-performance computing, WASAI Technology aims to improve commercialization and commoditization of scientific and technological applications.
###