tech
February 19, 2026
Microsoft's new 10,000-year data storage medium: glass
Femtosecond lasers etch data into a very stable medium.
TL;DR
- Project Silica uses femtosecond lasers to etch data into glass slabs, creating a stable archival storage medium.
- The system can achieve high data density, over a Gigabit per cubic millimeter, and data is projected to last over 10,000 years.
- Two methods for writing data to glass are explored: birefringence and varying refractive effects.
- Data is read back using phase contrast microscopy and interpreted by a convolutional neural network.
- Writing speed is currently a bottleneck at 66 megabits per second, but a single slab can store up to 4.84TB.
- The glass medium requires no energy to preserve data, making it ideal for long-term archival.
- Challenges remain in scaling the technology to handle the massive data volumes generated by projects like the Square Kilometer Array.
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