Have you ever wondered how long your digital data will last? How many of you still have photos on old CDs that are now unreadable or documents on floppy disks that are impossible to recover? The German startup Cerabyte has just shown the world an alternative that seems to have come out of a science fiction story: a ceramic glass capable of preserving information for millennia.
To demonstrate its resistance, the technicians have submitted this material under conditions that would evaporate any hard disk or magnetic tape: they immersed it in boiling salt water and roasted it in an oven at 250ยฐC. The result? The data remained perfectly intact, opening up previously unthinkable scenarios for long-term archiving.
Ceramic glass resistant to everything
The concept behind Cerabyteโs technology is as old as hieroglyphic inscriptions. The company, founded in 2022, has developed a system that uses an ultra-thin ceramic layer (just 50-100 atoms thick) applied to a glass substrate. Data is etched into this ceramic in the form of microscopic holes using femtosecond lasers, creating a medium that promises to last as long as ancient Sumerian tablets.
Extreme tests that exceed all expectations
The endurance tests were spectacular. The glass ceramic chip was immersed in boiling salt water for so long that the pan itself began to corrode. The holder then spent six hours in an oven at 90 to 100ยฐC. Despite these extreme conditions, the data remained perfectly legible., demonstrating a resistance to environmental factors that no other modern storage medium can boast.
Amazing capacity and performance
Each 9 cmยฒ chip can store up to 1 GB of information per side, with an impressive writing speed: two million bits per laser pulse. But Cerabyte's ambition goes further. The company plans to reduce storage costs to less than $1 per terabyte by 2030, a figure that would radically transform the economics of long-term data retention.
One of the most significant challenges of digital storage is the need to periodically migrate data from old to new media, since all current methods (magnetic tape, hard disk, or optical disk) degrade within a few decades. Cerabyte's ceramic glass promises to eliminate this need, offering a medium that can last for millennia without requiring constant energy or maintenance.
Ceramic Glass, the Future of โColdโ Storage
Cerabyte's project includes slides and a format called CeraTape, an exabyte-level tape designed to integrate with existing robotic library systems. If the company delivers on its promises, this technology could be an ideal solution for archiving โcoldโ: data that does not require frequent access but must be retained for long periods.
In a world churning out a tsunami of information, much of it destined for long-term storage, this technology could offer a sustainable, low-maintenance alternative. Whether Cerabyte can deliver on its promise of millennia-long life and ultra-low costs remains to be seen, but its trials have already raised the bar in the race for the future of data storage.
