Microsoft Reveals Glass Data Storage Lasting 10,000 Years

Microsoft Research has detailed a series of technical advances in Project Silica, a system designed to encode digital data into glass plates for long-term preservation.

Credit: Microsoft

Tech giant released findings through a paper published in the journal Nature, outlining methods to store information in borosilicate glass, a material commonly used in household items such as cookware.

This shift from fused silica, a more expensive option, reduces costs and expands potential applications for archival storage.

The process involves femtosecond lasers that create voxels, tiny modifications within the glass, to represent data bits.

Researchers at Microsoft reduced the number of laser pulses needed to form birefringent voxels in fused silica from multiple to two, and introduced a pseudo-single-pulse technique by splitting a single pulse to enable simultaneous voxel creation.

This allows beam scanning for faster writing speeds.

In addition, the team developed phase voxels, which alter the glass's phase state with just one pulse, compatible with borosilicate glass.

Credit: Microsoft

Reading these phase voxels requires a specific technique, and machine learning algorithms handle increased inter-symbol interference to maintain data integrity.

The system organizes data across hundreds of layers in glass plates about 2 millimeters thick.

Parallel writing combines pre-heating and post-heating models with multi-beam delivery to encode multiple voxels at once, boosting throughput.

Light emissions from the process aid in calibration for automated operations.

Optimizations include machine learning for symbol encoding to balance error rates and recovery, plus extensions of Gray codes for nonpower-of-two symbols.

Longevity tests use accelerated aging and a nondestructive optical method to assess voxel stability, projecting data retention for at least 10,000 years.

The reader hardware now relies on a single camera, down from three or four, and writing devices feature fewer components for simpler production and calibration.

"Now, we are excited to report significant progress on Project Silica, our effort to encode data in glass using femtosecond lasers, a technology that could preserve information for 10,000 years," states the official Microsoft Research announcement.

Project Silica originated from efforts to address the short lifespan of traditional media like magnetic tapes and hard drives, which degrade over decades.

Glass resists water, heat, and dust, making it suitable for permanent archives.

Earlier work focused on fused silica but faced limitations in cost and scalability.

Demonstrations include encoding the Warner Bros. film "Superman" onto a quartz glass piece, collaborating with the Global Music Vault to store music recordings beneath Arctic ice, and partnering on a "Golden Record 2.0" initiative.

That project compiled crowdsourced images, sounds, music, and languages to capture human diversity for future generations.