Revolutionary new system developed by Microsoft can store data on glass for 10,000 years

Most of the world’s digital memory isn’t built to last. Hard drives and magnetic tape wear out within years, forcing constant copying just to keep data from disappearing.

That problem is growing fast as global data keeps expanding, putting more pressure on systems that were never designed for long-term preservation.

Now, researchers are testing a different idea: storing data inside glass.

In a recent demonstration, a thin plate of borosilicate glass held nearly two terabytes of information and returned it without errors – pointing to a future where digital records could last far longer than today’s storage methods.

Inside the data storage glass

Inside a plate just 0.08 inches thick, 258 data layers held a dense record inside a slab roughly 4.7 inches wide.

Working from that layered platter, a team at Microsoft Research described a system that writes, reads, and decodes the stored data automatically.

The result mattered not only because the glass held a large amount of…