- Who
- Jingyu Zhang, Martynas Beresna, Peter G Kazansky, Mindaugas Gecevicius
- What
- 300 quintillion year(s)
- Where
- United Kingdom (Southampton)
- When
The most durable digital storage medium is stable at room temperature for 300 quintillion years, a material created by researchers from the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronics Research Centre, as published on 23 January 2014.
The material, a nanostructured glass disc, also has an estimated lifetime of 13.8 billion years (roughly the current age of the universe) at elevated temperature of 462 K (190 C), and a capacity of 360 TB. It has been hailed as a particularly significant invention, as no other existing storage medium can so safely ensure that data will be accessible by future generations.
