Want family photos that will last for millennia?!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
We’re generating more data than ever. Yet, digital data is at risk of being lost forever due to corrupted hard drives.
But Microsoft Research’s Project Silica Team has an idea! They developed a special thin glass that can store about five Terabytes of data. That’s one MILLION high-definition photos! Data is engraved into glass platters using laser pulses as 3D pixels.
So it CAN’T deteriorate like a hard drive! Each platter is predicted to be able to store data for ten THOUSAND years!
Now your descendants will never forget you! Unless they… break the glass. Kids…
Reference: Laser Writing in Glass for Dense, Fast and Efficient Archival Data Storage.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 18 Feb. 2026, www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10042-w