4 min learnNew DelhiFeb 24, 2026 08:01 PM IST
The world is producing extra digital info than ever earlier than. Whether or not it’s images, emails, scientific analysis, or synthetic intelligence fashions, the quantity of information being created every year is growing. As AI programs demand even bigger datasets, the stress on storage applied sciences is growing quick.
Now, researchers at Microsoft say they might have discovered a technique to retailer knowledge that would final not simply a long time, however hundreds of years inside glass. The breakthrough comes from the corporate’s analysis division, often called Challenge Silica. The crew has developed a technique that makes use of ultra-fast lasers to jot down knowledge inside stable items of glass. In keeping with the researchers, the data saved this fashion may stay intact for as much as 10,000 years.
Conventional storage units, like arduous drives, magnetic tapes, and even solid-state drives, don’t final endlessly. Over time, they degrade. This course of, generally known as knowledge rot, means info should be copied and transferred each few years to keep away from everlasting loss.
Richard Black, analysis director at Challenge Silica, instructed CNET that right this moment’s greatest storage problem is sturdiness. Media wears out, programs change into out of date, and fixed upkeep is required. Glass, he argues, doesn’t face the identical downside.
“Glass doesn’t degrade in the way in which conventional storage does,” he mentioned, including that the crew’s work exhibits long-term digital storage is sensible, not simply experimental.
Writing knowledge with lasers
The method appears like one thing out of science fiction. Researchers use femtosecond laser units that fireside pulses lasting one quadrillionth of a second to jot down info inside glass. These lasers are exact sufficient to change the fabric’s inside with out damaging its floor. They’re generally utilized in delicate procedures comparable to eye surgical procedure.
As an alternative of storing knowledge as flat bits, the laser creates tiny 3D buildings often called voxels contained in the glass. Consider them as three-dimensional pixels. These microscopic adjustments signify digital info embedded deep inside the materials.
Story continues beneath this advert
A current analysis paper printed in Nature outlines a key advance: using “section voxels” in a extra inexpensive materials. Early experiments relied on costly fused silica glass. Now, the crew has shifted to borosilicate glass, the identical sturdy materials generally present in kitchen cookware, considerably chopping prices.
How knowledge is retrieved
Storing info is barely half the problem. To learn it again, Challenge Silica makes use of automated archives. Robotic programs retrieve items of glass, and a neural community scans and decodes the patterns written inside. The system doesn’t require ongoing energy to protect the info solely when accessing it.
Additionally Learn: Researchers crack why even superior batteries for electrical vehicles don’t final lengthy
Microsoft has already examined the idea. In 2019, the crew efficiently saved the 1978 “Superman” movie inside a small piece of glass. The know-how can be being utilized in Norway’s Svalbard area for the World Music Vault, a venture designed to protect music recordings for the long run.
Glass is very proof against warmth, humidity, electromagnetic interference and even bodily injury. As a result of it doesn’t require frequent substitute, researchers say it might be extra sustainable over the long run than present storage programs.
Story continues beneath this advert
If developed on a business scale, this laser-engraved glass may revolutionise the way in which governments, establishments, and firms retailer essential paperwork. In an period when digital info has come to outline historical past, science, and tradition, the problem of defending it for hundreds of years might now not be an idea however a actuality.
© IE On-line Media Providers Pvt Ltd