Case Study: DNAstack achieves rapid COVID-19 genomics insights and global scalability with Microsoft Power BI

COVID-19 researchers get a boost from AI-powered genomics cloud

DNAstack, a Canadian genomics startup, built COVID Cloud to help scientists worldwide access and analyze SARS‑CoV‑2 genomic data. Faced with massive, heterogeneous sequencing datasets and the need to remove technical bias and scale globally, DNAstack launched the platform on Microsoft Azure and related services—including Azure Machine Learning, Azure Kubernetes Service, Databricks and Microsoft Power BI—to provide standardized, AI-enabled data access.

Using this Microsoft-powered stack, DNAstack implemented AI-driven preprocessing to homogenize sequences, used Azure Batch for massively parallel model testing (cutting algorithm prioritization from more than 200 days to under a week), and served data via APIs and interactive visualizations; in the first three months COVID Cloud supported 2,500 scientists from 10 countries, hosted nearly 11,000 viral sequences and processed over 20,000 queries, gaining government funding and national recognition. Microsoft Power BI is part of the analytics and visualization toolset that helps researchers explore mutations and accelerate insights.

DNAstack

Katie Houlahan

Data Science Lead