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This framed piece of glass could outlast your hard drives


  • Cerabyte’s ceramic-on-glass technology introduces a new era for sustainable digital archiving
  • Permanent media eliminates the energy needs of conventional archival data systems
  • Smartphone-readable samples show how accessible permanent storage could soon become

At the recent 2025 Open Compute Project (OCP) Global Summit in San Jose, California, Cerabyte offered attendees an unusual opportunity to “own a piece of storage history.”

The company showcased framed samples of its ceramic-on-glass media, each containing a digital copy of the US Constitution.

These early access samples show a new form of data preservation technology that aims to outlast every conventional medium currently in use.

The giveaway was part of the OCP Innovation Village, where companies present technologies 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 sustainable.

The company’s ceramic media does not require maintenance, energy, or migration to preserve information, offering what it calls “unlimited data preservation.”

This design greatly reduces long-term storage costs and carbon footprint, a claim that will likely appeal to data-heavy industries such as hyperscalers, research institutions, and digital archives.

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This demonstration focused on symbolic content rather than capacity, and the current prototype reportedly holds several gigabytes.

Visitors at the summit saw a live demonstration showing how to read and decode the 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 readers or environments.

“Data is at the core of society as well as artificial intelligence, yet storage media is not designed to retain data permanently while allowing it to be quickly accessible,” said Christian Pflaum, Cerabyte CEO. “This is a unique combination that is key to saving the past and unlocking future use cases.”

Despite the promise of longevity and efficiency, questions remain about scalability, production cost, and real-world adoption.

While the ceramic-on-glass samples offer a striking glimpse into archival permanence, their path toward commercial viability in modern cloud storage environments and AI data infrastructures is still uncertain.

For now, attendees at the OCP Summit not only got to take home a memento of innovation but perhaps a tangible sign of where the future of data preservation might lead.


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