Microsoft advances Project Silica for data storage

Microsoft has unveiled new advances in its Project Silica initiative, noting that the crystals it is working with can now store several terabytes (TB) of information and be maintained for 10,000 years.

Project Silica focuses on storing data in quartz glass, a proposal with which Microsoft, in collaboration with the Azure team, seeks more sustainable ways to archive data, as the company explains on its website.

This information, which is stored on the glass through a laser writing process, is decoded using Azure Artificial Intelligence (AI), which speeds up reading and writing and allows for greater data storage.

This initiative, which Microsoft launched in 2016, caught the attention of Warner Bros. in 2019, a company that was then looking for new ways to safeguard its file library. Then, both firms collaborated to store the movie ‘Superman’ (1978) in a piece of quartz crystal.

Microsoft has now announced that “technology has dramatically expanded the storage capabilities of this sustainable material” and that a small sheet of glass can now hold several TB of data.

This means that each glass plate can store approximately 1.75 million songs or 13 years of music that, once registered, “are impossible to change,” according to the company in its blog.

The technology manufacturer has also commented that these files can be maintained for up to 10,000 years because glass storage “promises to safely and sustainably encapsulate a wide range of data.”

“For both companies and individuals, adopting this form of archiving means entrusting future generations with an incalculable treasure of information,” he noted.

Source: dpa

(Referential image source: Microsoft, Europa Press / dpa)

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