Microsoft Project Silica Can Preserve Terabytes of Data in Glass for 10,000 Years Without Power

Microsoft’s Project Silica demonstrates that digital data can be stored in ordinary borosilicate glass for over 10,000 years. Using femtosecond lasers, researchers encode information as microscopic 3D voxels, achieving densities of 4.8 terabytes on a 2mm sheet. Unlike magnetic tapes or hard drives that degrade within decades, glass resists heat, moisture, and dust. Designed for long-term archives rather than everyday storage, this breakthrough could preserve cultural and scientific records for millennia.