5D glass storage 'memory crystals' promise up to 13.8 billion years of data storage resilience, which is also the age of the universe — crams 360 terabytes into 5-inch glass disc with femtosecond laser

SPhotonix says it has moved its so-called 5D Memory Crystal technology out of the lab and closer to real-world deployment, outlining plans to pilot glass-based cold storage systems in data centers over the next two years, according to remarks made during an interview with The Register. The UK start-up, spun out of research at the University of Southampton and founded in 2024, made the announcement alongside details of its first round of external funding.

The company’s storage medium is a fused silica glass platter, written using a femtosecond laser that encodes data in nanoscale structures. Information is stored across five dimensions: three spatial coordinates (x, y, z), plus the orientation and intensity of the nanostructures, which are read back optically using polarized light. SPhotonix claims a single 5-inch glass disc can hold up to 360TB of data, with the media designed to be stable for 13.8 billion years — the estimated age of the universe — assuming there are no external mishaps along the way.

According to SPhotonix, its current prototypes achieve write speeds of around 4 MBps and read speeds of roughly 30 MBps. Those figures place the technology well below existing archival systems today, but the company has published a roadmap targeting sustained read and write speeds of 500 MBps within three to four years.

The company estimates early system costs at approximately $30,000 for a writer and $6,000 for a reader, with a field-deployable reader expected in about 18 months. SPhotonix says it has raised $4.5 million to date and is now working to move from Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5 to TRL 6, which typically involves validation in relevant operational environments rather than controlled laboratory settings.

In terms of its lifetime longevity, the company describes the media as inherently air gapped, requiring no power to retain data, and suitable for archives where access latencies of 10 seconds or more are acceptable.

SPhotonix is not alone in pursuing non-magnetic cold storage. Microsoft has publicly tested glass media under its Project Silica program, while other startups such as Cerabyte are promoting ceramic-based alternatives aimed at robotic library systems. What differentiates SPhotonix’s approach is its focus on licensing the media and optical platform into existing data center architectures rather than building an end-to-end storage service.

Whether SPhotonix’s 5D glass can transition from impressive density demonstrations to competitive system-level performance will determine if it becomes a niche archival medium or a viable storage solution in modern data centers.

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