Did sequencing cost really keep falling faster than Moore's Law?
NHGRI's curve showed the cost to sequence a genome falling from $95M in 2001 to ~$525 in 2022 — 'suddenly and profoundly out-pacing Moore's Law' from January 2008. We rebuilt it and checked it against the data flood it caused: the rare forecast on this page that mostly came true.
$95.3M
cost per genome, Sept 2001 (NHGRI)
$524.62
cost per genome, May 2022 (NHGRI)
~181,000×
cheaper in 21 years — far faster than Moore's Law
<$100
the sub-$100 genome arrived, 2022–24 — the forecast came true
Cost per genome (NHGRI)If it had tracked Moore's Law (halve every ~24 mo)
NHGRI's cost-per-genome curve on a log axis (copper) against where the cost would be if sequencing had merely tracked Moore's Law from 2001 (dashed grey, halving every ~24 months). The cliff at 2008 — the Sanger-to-next-generation transition — is the 'sudden and profound out-pacing of Moore's Law'. By 2022 the realized cost ($524.62) sits ~140× below the Moore line. The catch is the shape: after the 2008–2012 free-fall the curve flattened markedly (≈$1,000 in 2014 to only ~$525 by 2022), so a straight-line extrapolation of the early slope badly over-predicts the 2015–2022 segment.
The rare forecast that came true — with an asterisk
What held upThe central claim was correct and rare among forecasts on this page: cost per genome fell ~181,000× (from $95.26M to $524.62) and cost per megabase ~880,000× (from $5,292.39 to $0.006); the super-Moore phase from January 2008 is real; and the implied sub-$100/$200 genome arrived in 2022–24 (Ultima UG 100, Illumina NovaSeq X, MGI). The downstream data flood the cheap cost predicted is real and trackable — GenBank WGS bases up ~4,900× since 2002, to ~33 trillion.
What brokeThe decline was NOT a clean continued exponential: costs plateaued from ~2015–2022 ($1,000 in 2014 to only ~$525 by 2022), so straight-line extrapolation of the 2008–2012 slope over-predicts the later segment. And the headline per-genome number is not the true cost to a researcher: NHGRI explicitly excludes analysis, interpretation, labor beyond the center, and long-term storage — the very costs that have not fallen as fast (the Sboner 2011 'real cost of sequencing' caveat).
Did the cost forecast come true?
Forecast milestone
When it looked plausible
What actually happened
$1,000 genome
mid-2010s
2014 — Illumina HiSeq X Ten ✓
Sub-$100 genome
~2020s
2022–24 — NovaSeq X, Ultima UG 100, MGI ✓
Keeps beating Moore's Law
from Jan 2008
Yes — ~140× below the Moore line by 2022 ✓
Smooth continued halving
straight-line extrapolation
No — plateaued ~$1,000 → $525, 2015–22 ✗
From $95 million to under $100
12001$95.26M per genome — NHGRI's first data point: $95,263,071.92 per genome and $5,292.39 per megabase, in the capillary (Sanger) sequencing era.
22008Costs out-pace Moore's Law — With the Sanger-to-NGS transition (454, Solexa/Illumina), NHGRI reports cost per genome plunging ~$3M → ~$230k within roughly a year — the start of the 'sudden and profound out-pacing of Moore's Law'.
32014$1,000 genome — Illumina's HiSeq X Ten breaks the $1,000-per-genome barrier — the symbolic target of the super-Moore decline.
42022$524.62 per genome — NHGRI's last published point: $524.62 per genome and $0.006 per Mb — but the curve has visibly flattened since ~2015 rather than continued halving.
52024Sub-$200 / $100 genome — Illumina NovaSeq X (~$200), Ultima Genomics' UG 100 (~$100 raw reagent) and MGI's DNBSEQ-T20×2 (sub-$100 at scale) realize the implied sub-$100 forecast — the prediction broadly comes true.
62024~33T WGS bases archived — The cheap-cost data flood downstream: GenBank's WGS division reaches ~33 trillion bases (Release 264.0, Dec 2024), ~4,900× its 2002 size — the consequence the cost curve foretold.
SeqDesk · revised predictions. The cost curve is NHGRI's own production-cost accounting (reagents, instruments amortized, labor and overhead at the funded centers), per ~30× human genome; it explicitly EXCLUDES downstream alignment, variant-calling, analysis, interpretation and long-term storage — so the headline number is not the cost of an interpreted genome (the Sboner 2011 caveat). Cost is not a SeqDesk tracker metric, so the forecast is checked against NHGRI's published series; only the downstream consequence (the data flood) reuses live tracker metrics. The Moore's-Law reference halves the 2001 cost every ~24 months. Values are NHGRI's published cost-per-genome points; the May 2022 figure is $524.6246837 (~$524.62).
How this is tracked
What it measuresA cost forecast checked against reality — sequencing cost per genome vs a Moore's-Law trajectory
The dataNHGRI / Wetterstrand cost-accounting curve (genome.gov), Sept 2001 → May 2022 production costs
Realized milestonesVendor announcements — HiSeq X Ten (2014), NovaSeq X / Ultima UG 100 / MGI (2022–24)
Downstream floodReuses genbank-wgs-bases (~33T, ~4,900× since 2002), with sra-records and ena-read-run
CadenceCurated — NHGRI cost series + live archive count · validated 2026-06-25
A revised prediction — and the rare one that mostly came true: the cost forecast held, even if the curve flattened and the 'real cost' of an interpreted genome did not fall as fast. Only aggregate counts are published. · back to all research data