Microsoft Silica stores data for 10,000 years in special kitchen glass

"Microsoft has achieved a breakthrough with Project Silica. The technology for long-term data storage now works with borosilicate glass. This is the same material used for cookware and oven doors. The method can store data for up to 10,000 years. Long-term storage of digital information remains a challenge for data centers and archives. Magnetic tapes and hard drives degrade within a few decades, making them less suitable for storing data for future generations."

"The writing equipment is also simpler. Fewer components mean that they are easier to produce and calibrate. This allows them to encode data faster. The researchers developed a technique to accelerate aging tests on inscribed glass, suggesting that the data will remain intact for at least 10,000 years. The Nature publication describes several scientific breakthroughs. For example, the team introduced 'phase voxels', a new storage method in which the glass's phase is altered rather than its polarization. These voxels can be formed with a single pulse."

Project Silica encodes digital data into borosilicate glass using femtosecond lasers, enabling storage lifetimes projected up to 10,000 years. Replacing expensive quartz with borosilicate significantly reduces material cost and improves resistance to water, heat, and dust. The new process stores hundreds of layers inside 2 mm glass and requires only one camera to read data, shrinking device size and cutting costs. Writing hardware uses fewer components, simplifying production, calibration, and speeding encoding. Accelerated aging tests indicate long-term data integrity. Scientific advances include phase voxels that alter glass phase and allow single-pulse formation.

Read at Techzine Global