Consequences of database growth
For many algorithms in bioinformatics, the whole data set
in Genbank is the input. Let us make the conservative
estimate that the size of this input doubles every nine
months. Moore’s Law says that computer speed doubles
every 18 months. Thus if you have an algorithm with
running time O(n2) that takes Genbank as input and that
takes one hour to run today on the fastest available
computer, it will take eight hours to run on the fastest
available computer 18 months from now.