Keynote: Accelerating Genome Sequencing via Containers and Kubernetes – Chao Wang & Anni Lai

Keynote: Accelerating Genome Sequencing via Containers and Kubernetes – Chao Wang, CTO, X-Turing & Anni Lai, Head of Global Business Development, VP of Strategy & Business Development, Huawei & Governing Board Member, CNCF

Genome sequencing is figuring out the order of DNA nucleotides, or bases, in a genome – the order of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts that make up organism’s DNA. The human genome is made up of over 3 billion of genetic letters, thus genome sequencing projects tend to be large and the data processing processes are generally complex and require a variety of tools and software. The traditional HPC or VM based platform tends to fall short in a genome sequencing computation environment. X-Turing, a leading biotechnology company in China who provides biotech related solutions and services to enterprises and customers such as doctors, scientists, dietitians, aestheticians, etc, overcame the challenges that traditional HPC and VM based platform faced in a genome sequencing environment by building an entire workflow and a full stack toolchain using containers and Kubernetes. X-Turing’s Kubernetes platform is a live system in production that offers 5000+ container-based applications, thousands of container instances servicing enterprise customers such as Beijing Genomics Institute, China National GeneBank, New China Life Insurance, and many top hospitals and universities in China.In this talk, we will discuss the challenges that X-Turing faced during their genome sequencing projects and how they were able to leverage modern technologies such as containers and Kubernetes to overcome challenges. We will also discuss the next phase of X-Turing’s IT modernization in order to further improve their IT efficiency and better serve their business needs.