- Cerabyte’s ceramic-on-glass technology opens a new era for sustainable digital archiving
- Permanent media eliminates the power requirements of conventional archival data systems
- Smartphone-readable examples show how accessible permanent storage could soon become
At the recent Open Compute Project (OCP) 2025 Global Summit in San Jose, California, Cerabyte offered attendees an unusual opportunity to “own a piece of storage history.”
The company displayed framed samples of its ceramic-on-glass media, each containing a digital copy of the U.S. Constitution.
These early access samples demonstrate a new form of data preservation technology that aims to outlast all conventional media currently in use.
The competition was part of the OCP Innovation Village, where companies showcase technologies that are reshaping the future of computing, networking and data centers.
Cerabyte’s approach is based on the idea that data storage should be both permanent and durable.
The company’s ceramic media require no maintenance, energy or migration to preserve information, providing what it calls “unlimited data retention.”
This design significantly reduces long-term storage costs and carbon footprint, a claim that will likely appeal to data-intensive industries such as hyperscalers, research institutions and digital archives.
This demonstration focused on symbolic content rather than capacity, and the current prototype is said to contain several gigabytes.
Summit visitors were treated to a live demonstration showing how to read and decode data stored on the ceramic-on-glass media using a standard smartphone.
This accessibility feature sets the technology apart from traditional archival storage, which often requires specialized drives or environments.
“Data is at the heart of society and artificial intelligence, but storage media is not designed to retain data permanently while allowing rapid access,” said Christian Pflaum, CEO of Cerabyte. “This is a unique combination that is key to rescuing the past and unlocking future use cases.” »
Despite promises of longevity and efficiency, questions remain about scalability, cost of production, and real-world adoption.
Although the ceramic-on-glass samples offer a striking insight into the permanence of archives, their path to commercial viability in modern cloud storage environments and AI data infrastructures is still uncertain.
For now, OCP Summit attendees were not only able to walk away with a memory of innovation, but perhaps also a tangible sign of where the future of data preservation could take.
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