“It’s a really nice proof of concept and a significant improvement over previous DNA data storage approaches,” says Kun Zhang, a genomics expert at Altos Labs. “It gets around a barrier of DNA data storage that requires synthesizing DNA from scratch,” adds Jeff Nivala, a biophysicist at the University of Washington.

The allure of DNA data storage is immense: A single gram of DNA can store up to 215 petabytes of data, enough to store 10 million hours of high-definition video. At that rate, a few pickup trucks worth of DNA could store all the data humanity has ever recorded. And unlike conventional electronic hard drives, which degrade in years or decades, DNA can last for millennia.