Genomic information is essential to underpintaxonomic, phylogenetic, evolutionary and functional studies to comprehensively decipher the characteristics of microorganisms, to explore microbiomes through metagenomics and also answer fundamental questions of nature and human life. The research related to the taxonomy, evolution and functions of microorganisms have now entered into the genomic era. However, there is still a biggap of genomic sequencing information for the bacterial and archaean species with validly published names by the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes. For fungal type strains, the remaining gap is even larger. Global Catalogue of Microorganisms is an international coordinated effort to close current gaps in the genomic maps of microbes and hence to promote research through deep-mining of the genomic data. The project includes 2 core subprojects: 10K bacterial and archaeal type strain sequencing, fungi type strain sequencing and also several satellite projects based on the specific scientific targets.