Kerala takes a bold step into the future with its ₹500 crore Genome Data Center — a centralized platform to decode massive genomic data for research, outbreak prediction, biodiversity, and One Health. This initiative empowers 25+ institutes with cutting-edge infrastructure to transform science and healthcare.

Shahid Akhter, Editor, HealthYouOnline, spoke to Dr. Raju M.R., Head, Kerala Genome Data Center, to explore how India’s largest centralised genomic infrastructure is revolutionising research in biodiversity, One Health, and outbreak prediction. Dr. Raju discussed how the ₹500 crore initiative is enabling real-time genomic sequencing, empowering 25+ life sciences institutions, and positioning Kerala as a global hub for genomic innovation.

Kerala Genome Data Center

Kerala Genome Data Center is a very ambitious project from the Government of Kerala, where we are setting up a data center very specifically for generating and analysing large sets of genomic data. 

Why it is important is when we sequence genomic data, the amount of data which is generated is massive. It goes to about petabytes of data. So to analyse tau archive and create meaningful enterprises from this genomic data requires very specific set of hardware and software combinations. 

We have currently won 25 life science institutes in the state, and if every institute has to set up a center like this, that would be a lot of effort in terms of manpower and the cost. So with one data center centrally, all these institutes can have access to the entire infrastructure, both hardware and software. And all the students, researchers, postdoc fellows, faculty can use this for, research and scientific purposes. 

Kerala Genome Data Center:  Resources 

Kerala Genome Data Center was announced in the month of March in 2023, and currently this entire project was in Vici with a budget of 500 crore. Right now in phase one, we have a grant from GitHub 400 crores where 45 crores will be used for hardware procurement and 45 crores will be utilised for genomic sequencing and data generation part.

Kerala Genome Data Center: Activities 

So on the long term vision, we want this to be a center of excellence, not only in Kerala, but globally. Working on biodiversity, livestock, agricultural genomics and microbial genomics. We also want to work on One Health, where we have seen in Kerala, there had been multiple instance of Nipah outbreak, a lot of Nordic diseases. 

So we want to, work in this area as where we can we will be able to predict before a, outbreak happens and also come with innovative therapy. And we want we also want to tap into the grants, biodiversity grants, by multiple, international, of, organisations and also build the entire platform where, for genomics, we want to be, you know, a role model for the entire country.