The tiny glass blocks that can preserve your data for centuries

For years governments, hospitals and families have had to use frail magnetic storage for their most important data. Now, scientists have an alternative — that lasts for ever
Tom Whipple
, Science Editor
The Times
Richard Black, senior principal research manager at Microsoft, Cambridge, holds a glass plate containing all the code for Microsoft Flight Simulator
Richard Black, senior principal research manager at Microsoft, Cambridge, holds a glass plate containing all the code for Microsoft Flight Simulator
TERRY HARRIS FOR THE TIMES
Tom Whipple
, Science Editor
The Times

If you focus an extremely powerful laser on an extremely small patch of glass for an extremely short period of time, you can etch a tiny mark. If you control the orientation of the etching, then that mark can carry information.

And if you do that several billion times, in hundreds of layers through a block of glass, then, in this particular instance, you can store the entirety of Microsoft Flight Simulator in a medium that will last for centuries. If that’s what you want.

“What this is about is long-term data storage,” said Richard Black, holding up a small, thin, square pane of glass that contains all the code you need to, say, fly an Airbus A380 from Gatwick to JFK. “Anything you want