SILVA in 2026: a global core biodata resource for rRNA within the DSMZ digital diversity

Since 2007, the SILVA database (https://www.arb-silva.de/) has served as a comprehensive resource providing quality-checked, aligned, and classified ribosomal RNA sequences for the scientific community worldwide. The database provides manually curated taxonomic classifications for the three domains of life, standardized reference datasets, and tools for classifying microbial diversity. SILVA's impact has been recognized in its designation as ELIXIR Core Data Resource and Global Core Biodata Resource. The integration of SILVA into the DSMZ Digital Diversity consortium (D3; https://hub.dsmz.de) in 2023 marked a significant update, ensuring the long-term sustainability and continued development of the resource. Apart from moving to a new hosting institution, this integration facilitates data interoperability and standardization among SILVA, LPSN, StrainInfo, and other D3 databases. New developments this year include a redesigned website consistent with the DSMZ corporate identity, DOI assignments for all SILVA releases to enhance data citation and support the FAIR data principles, and the provisioning of QIIME2, DADA2, and KRAKEN2 classifiers. Additionally, the EukMap application has been redeveloped as a curation and visualization tool called TaxMap. In anticipation of the next data release, we outline recent developments and the current state of the database, its relation with other D3 resources, and its future directions.