Project Silica's advances in glass storage technology featured in Nature

Microsoft Research published a paper in Nature detailing advances in Project Silica glass-based data storage technology that extends the medium from expensive fused silica to ordinary borosilicate glass. The company said the new technique uses a single laser pulse to create phase voxels in the lower-cost material found in kitchen cookware and enables faster parallel writing. Researchers said the reader now requires only one camera instead of three or four and that writing devices need fewer parts, reducing cost and complexity. Microsoft said accelerated aging tests suggest data could remain intact for at least 10,000 years. The paper also describes a machine learning model to mitigate interference in phase voxels and a nondestructive optical method to identify voxel aging. The research phase is now complete, and Microsoft said it is continuing to consider learnings from Project Silica as it explores the ongoing need for sustainable long-term preservation of digital information. Previous demonstrations included storing Warner Bros.' "Superman" movie on quartz glass and partnering with Global Music Vault to preserve music.