HCA Data now freely available on AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) helps give worldwide access to open HCA data.
HCA has now joined the AWS Open Data Program, enabling AWS to host HCA data and make it freely available via their Cloud Computing services. Since its inception, HCA has been committed to making data openly and freely available worldwide, to benefit humanity everywhere. The AWS Open Data Program will help enable storage and open access of the data long term.
Data from the HCA Biological Network Atlases and other studies, from more than 66 million cells, are available on the HCA Data Portal. Initial HCA Lung, Brain, Retina, and Organoid Atlases are already accessible on the Portal, and new HCA Liver, Gut, Kidney, Immune, and Developmental Atlases will be available in the next few months. Additional HCA Biological Atlases will then be added over the next year to complete the First Draft Human Cell Atlas.
Due to the vast scale of the global HCA effort mapping all the cells in the human body, more than 300 TB of data has already been made available to the community, with much more to come. People using HCA Atlases and data will download the data from the HCA Data Portal in the same way as before. The AWS listing gives greater visibility to the HCA datasets and facilitates excellent access to the data in every region of the world.
A hands-on workshop at the 2025 HCA General Meeting demonstrated the use of AWS cloud solutions to accelerate single-cell analysis workflows. More than 75 people participated in the workshop on 11 June, ‘Unlocking Cellular Insights: AWS Cloud Solutions for Advanced Omics and Generative AI in Research’. The interactive session also introduced practical applications of generative AI in research settings.