"Neuroscientists have long dreamed of recording from many thousands of neurons simultaneously. This goal is the major motivation of the BRAIN initiative and related efforts, and with new calcium imaging methods and large-scale multielectrode array (MEA) devices, this dream is quickly becoming a reality. But now a major bottleneck exists. Cutting-edge calcium imaging methods and MEAs output data at rates on the order of terabytes/hour, and data rates continue to increase. At these huge rates processing and even storing the data is challenging, let alone optimally extracting all the useful information in these data streams; without the right analytical technology, we will never unlock the true potential of these experimental advances." --"Neural data science: accelerating the experiment-analysis-theory cycle in large-scale neuroscience", Paninski and Cunningham, Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 2018