Nevertheless, the three partners anticipate that it will take approximately five years to complete the entire sequencing, assembly, annotation and study of the cocoa genome.  Scientists from USDA-ARS and Mars will conduct various aspects of the project at the USDA-ARS facility in Miami.  Researchers at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, will use their computational biology technology and expertise to develop a detailed genetic map and assemble and study the cocoa genome.

Additionally, the research results will be freely available to anyone through the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture (PIPRA), which supports agricultural innovation for both humanitarian and small-scale commercial purposes. Mars expects to invest $10 million in the project.