Biology · Sequence Databases
GenBank Sequence Data
The public sequence archive that the Human Genome Project filled and BLAST searches.
- ~12.1M× growth in 44 years
- ~18-mo doubling post-2018, now ~2.5yr
- Excludes WGS bulk data; ~60 Tbp with it
- Feeds BLAST, HGP, AlphaFold training data
Release 3 of GenBank, the NIH sequence archive, held 680,000 base pairs in 1982. Release 273 holds 8,237 gigabase pairs, or 8.2 Tbp, in August 2026: some 12.1 million times as much, 44 years on. The fastest stretch was the Human Genome era, when these divisions doubled roughly every 17 months from 1998 to 2004. Growth then slowed to a five-year doubling through the 2010s, though sequencing itself did not slow: bulk next-generation output flows into the separate whole-genome shotgun (WGS) divisions, which this series deliberately excludes. Doubling quickened again to 18 months after 2018 and has since eased — 2025 added about 31%, a doubling nearer two and a half years — so the steepest stretch is behind it. The figures track the traditional GenBank divisions; with WGS data included the total is about 60 Tbp.
| Year | Value | Note | Projected |
|---|---|---|---|
| December 1982 | 0.00068 Gbp | GenBank release 3 (680K bp) | |
| December 1985 | 0.005 Gbp | ||
| December 1988 | 0.025 Gbp | ||
| December 1990 | 0.051 Gbp | ||
| December 1993 | 0.16 Gbp | ||
| December 1995 | 0.43 Gbp | ||
| December 1998 | 2.2 Gbp | ||
| December 2000 | 11.1 Gbp | Human Genome era | |
| December 2002 | 28.5 Gbp | ||
| December 2004 | 44.6 Gbp | ||
| December 2006 | 69 Gbp | ||
| December 2008 | 99 Gbp | ||
| December 2010 | 122 Gbp | ||
| December 2012 | 148 Gbp | ||
| December 2014 | 185 Gbp | ||
| December 2016 | 225 Gbp | ||
| December 2018 | 286 Gbp | ||
| December 2020 | 723 Gbp | ||
| December 2022 | 1,636 Gbp | ||
| December 2024 | 5,086 Gbp | 5.1 Tbp (Dec 2024 release) | |
| December 2025 | 6,651 Gbp | 6.7 Tbp (Dec 2025 release) | |
| August 2026 | 8,237 Gbp | 8.2 Tbp, release 273 (Aug 2026) |