Today, information is being digitized on a massive scale, by servers in datacenters, by mobile devices, and by networks of sensors everywhere around us. Artificial intelligence techniques and ubiquitous processing power are making it possible to mine this massive ocean of data; however, integral to harnessing this data as knowledge is the ability to store it for long periods of time. Legacy storage solutions have scaled extensively over the years, but the areal density of magnetic media (HDD and tape), which enables today’s mainstream archival storage solutions, is slowing, and the size of libraries is becoming unwieldy. The industry needs a new storage medium that is more dense, durable, sustainable, and cost effective in order to cope with the expected future growth of archival data. DNA, nature’s data storage medium, enters this picture at a time when synthesis and sequencing technologies for advanced medical and scientific applications are enabling the manipulation of synthetic DNA in ways previously unimagined. In this panel discussion, the founders of the DNA Storage Alliance will discuss their views of this emerging technology and the challenges we face to make it a commercially viable part of the storage ecosystem.