Western Digital Corp (NASDAQ:WDC) continues to surge but the stock lost 0.93% in the last trading session to close at $47.41.
The reason why the company has been gaining is the recent collaboration with Baskin School of Engineering and UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute. Western digital entered in a joint multi-year research and development agreement with the two institutions to fast-track genomics sequencing workflows by use of the computational storage technology. Results from the study could be vital in leading the acceleration of Clinical genomic analysis as well as precision medicine diagnoses.
Genomic diagnoses
The process of identifying and treating of cancers by use of genomic diagnostic is currently prolonged and time-consuming because it involves the movement of massive data to the computing resources. Research scientists from the institutions and Western digital believe that movement of computational capabilities near data storage will enhance acceleration of the process and thus the identification and treatment process.
Robin Neil, the head of emerging systems and software at western digital, indicated that the company wants to develop computational storage architecture to test the theory at scale. The new architecture will enhance the distribution of computation in a single system across various computational storage devices with each having customized storage as well as computational resources.
Movement of computer closer to data
The movement of the compute to the data instead of data to compute will significantly take advantage of broader bandwidth access to genomics data through the near medial compute as well as enhance customization and parallel computing capabilities in the computational storage device.
Currently, genomic data is on an upward trajectory than all types of data on the globe. The movement of the compute to the data is an important strategy is currently getting adopted at the software layer in numerous genomic initiatives globally.
Western Digital will provide the funding to support the joint venture of investigators and graduate student in computer engineering and genomics and also as Ultrastar platform for UC Santa Cruz Institute to store project data.