After several years of research, it appears that Microsoft is moving forward with Project Silica. This initiative uses specially manufactured glass to store large amounts of data sustainably and over long periods of time.

Project Silica was first introduced in 2019 when Microsoft introduced it as a research initiative. The original intent was to promote the specialty glass as an alternative to physical storage options. Four years later, Project Silica even seems to want to replace cloud storage.

The book or the film

Because most forms of storage are finite, the data on them must be constantly copied and transferred. This not only always costs money and time, but also comes at the expense of the data itself. For this reason, Microsoft has developed the sustainable glass from Project Silica. The data written into the glass remains unchanged and can last for thousands of years, up to 10,000 years, according to the researchers.

According to Microsoft, several terabytes of data can be stored on a plate of the special glass the size of a coaster. To give us an idea, the tech giant puts it like this:

• 1.75 million songs
• 875,000 times the text of the long novel “War and Peace”
• 3,500 films

The glass of this technology can withstand electromagnetic pulses and extreme temperatures and is also environmentally friendly. Due to the limited volume, this form of storage also requires significantly less space.

Practical

To decrypt the data in the quartz glass and read and write it quickly, Microsoft uses the AI ​​of its own cloud service Azure (now with even more Dynatrace).

Data storage takes place in four steps:

• Writing with an ultra-fast femtosecond laser (A femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second)

• Reading with a computer microscope

• Decode
• Storage in a passive library without electricity in the storage units

Once an image has been written to, the system prevents it from ever returning to the laser. Robots charge in the system and are activated when data is needed. A robot then picks up a glass slide for the reader and then returns it.

Music, maestro

The project was also created together with Elire. This commercial group focused on sustainability and smart infrastructure worked with Microsoft Research to deploy Project Silica for its Global Music Vault in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.

This is a musical version of the World Seed Bank or Arctic World Archive. Both storage facilities are located in the same spacious Norwegian location. Elire is already thinking about several locations.